Vitals

Matthew McConaughey as Joseph “Coop” Cooper, resourceful NASA pilot-turned-farmer and widowed family man

Colorado, Spring 2067

Film: Interstellar
Release Date: November 5, 2014
Director: Christopher Nolan
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Born 57 years ago today on November 4, 1969, Matthew McConaughey was in the midst of his celebrated “McConaissance” when he starred in Christopher Nolan’s 2014 sci-fi epic Interstellar, which opened in select theaters one day after the actor’s 45th birthday. The charismatic Texan had spent two decades building an eclectic career, from his stoner breakthrough in Dazed and Confused (1993) through a succession of dramatic leading roles and romantic comedies. Following a brief hiatus, McConaughey returned to the screen on the other side of 40 with a renewed focus on more challenging material, culminating in his Oscar-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and his unforgettable turn as nihilistic detective Rust Cohle in the first season of HBO’s True Detective.

Interstellar marked McConaughey’s first—and, to date, only—collaboration with Nolan, who sets his ambitious spacefaring saga in a dystopian future where catastrophic blight and widespread famine threaten humanity with extinction. McConaughey stars as Joseph “Coop” Cooper, a widowed former NASA pilot now raising his teenage son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and 10-year-old daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy) on a dusty corn farm in the Great Plains. When Coop and Murph follow a series of seemingly supernatural clues to a clandestine NASA facility, they encounter Professor John Brand (Michael Caine) and his daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway), who are preparing a desperate mission to identify habitable worlds beyond our solar system. Coop’s experience as a skilled aviator makes him an ideal candidate to pilot the expedition, though accepting the assignment means leaving his children behind for what could be years—or even a lifetime.

Coop: So if we find a home… then what?
Professor Brand: That’s the long shot.

Though Coop is motivated by the hope of securing a better future for his children, his decision to leave devastates Murph, who feels betrayed by the father she fears she’ll never see again. As a parting gift, Coop gives her a watch—specially designed for the film by Hamilton—to accompany the Hamilton timepiece he wears himself. He also shares his interpretation of her late mother’s poignant last words, articulating a bittersweet reflection about parenthood that yours truly has only begun to appreciate, writing this just days after celebrating my firstborn son’s first birthday:

She said, “Now, we’re just here to be memories for our kids.” And I think I now understand what she meant: once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future.

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What’d He Wear?

Though these manufacturers may have ceased producing new clothing decades before Interstellar‘s dystopian future, Coop’s everyday farming wardrobe remains firmly rooted in American heritage workwear, favoring rugged brands established around the turn of the 20th century.

The Carhartt Work Jacket

Coop’s canvas work jacket is unmistakably Carhartt, a favored brand throughout the Cooper household: his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow) and the adult Murph (Jessica Chastain) also wear clothing from the Michigan-based workwear manufacturer. In the years since Interstellar‘s release, fans have painstakingly sought to identify and track down McConaughey’s screen-worn jacket, ultimately identified as a Carhartt “Detroit” RNJ001 BRN with several cosmetic alterations and modifications for the production. (Itself an update of the classic J97, the RNJ001 has since been discontinued and—thanks to its use in Interstellar—has become quite rare among collectors, though Carhartt now offers the updated J01 model as of 2026.)

The RNJ001’s outer shell is made from heavyweight, 12-ounce cotton duck canvas in Carhartt’s familiar brown colorway (hence the “BRN” in the product code), intentionally weathered to a dusty, camel-like tan like the J97’s sandstone-washed treatment. The shirt-style collar is fully faced in a brown pinwale corduroy, with nickel-finished snaps spaced along the underside for attaching a hood. The jacket has a straight front zip with a branded brass zip pull. The horizontal zippered pocket set into the left breast closes with a matching zipper, which Coop leaves undone for his spiral-bound Rite-in-the-Rain notebook and Pilot Precise V5 RT pen, and the two hand pockets have slanted “slash” entries.

Bi-swing pleats behind the shoulders allow the wearer a greater range of arm movement, and the armholes are reinforced with triple-row topstitching that also follow the top and bottom of each sleeve. Triangular reinforcement stitching accent the cuffs, each finished with a single brass-finished snap. The broad hem prominently features horizontal topstitching and a slightly puckered lower edge, with side tabs that close through one of two brass-finished snaps.

The stock RNJ001 featured an acrylic/polyester “blanket lining” which was ripped out for Interstellar‘s production and replaced with a lighter weight, darker brown cloth. The standard white Carhartt patch over the left breast was also swapped for a more subdued brown-on-tan patch, maintaining the branding presence without being as conspicuous as the original white may have looked on screen.

Simple Shirts

Coop typically dresses for farm life in mid-weight white T-shirts made from combed cotton jersey, each with a classic crew neck and short sleeves. McConaughey’s screen-worn tees were made by James Perse, the same L.A.-based label that made the dark T-shirts David Duchovny frequently wore as Hank Moody on Californication and the lone fashionable departure from his wardrobe’s heritage workwear lineage.

Coop continues wearing these white shirts up in space, where he also rotates through similar tees in burgundy, gray, and a long-sleeved navy-blue. Back down on Earth, the only other shirt he prominently wears with his Carhartt jacket appears to be a gray linen or linen-blend, styled like a work-shirt with two open-top patch pockets on the chest, a front placket, and button cuffs.

Below the Waist: Levi’s Jeans and Red Wing Boots

Coop’s dark stonewash jeans are likely the classic Levi’s 501® Original Fit, identifiable by the arcuate stitching across both back pockets and the brand’s telltale red tab added to their denim in 1936—and still clearly a signifier by the 2060s. Characterized by a classic five-pocket layout and button-fly, these jeans’ lineage dates back to Levi Strauss & Co. patenting their copper rivets in 1873, with the modern 501® design generally standardized since the end of World War II.

He holds up his jeans with a dark-brown leather belt that closes through a brass-toned rectangular single-prong buckle. He also tucks a pair of mustard-colored nubuck work gloves in his back left pocket.

The straight cap-toe design of Coop’s brown leather work boots suggest Red Wing Iron Ranger boots, likely the six-inch Heritage #8111 with oiled “amber harness” full-grain leather uppers. These are derby-laced through four sets of nickel-finished steel eyelets plus three pairs of speed hooks. Goodyear welt construction attaches these thick leather uppers to nitrile cork outsoles, as originally fitted to the Iron Ranger before Red Wing introduced its Vibram 430 mini-lug soles in 2015.

Founded in Minnesota in 1905, Red Wing launched the Iron Ranger style on their No. 8 last for iron miners in the 1930s. The Iron Rangers’ signature rounded toe caps are reinforced by a second layer of leather, secured by four closely spaced rows of dark stitching following the curved rear edge of each cap.

Hamilton Watches Save Humanity?

Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s screenplay provides little detail about Murph’s wristwatch that co-stars in Jessica Chastain’s hands during the final act, though watchmakers were likely salivating at the opportunity for one of their timepieces to feature so significantly in a major movie.

According to Ariel Adams at aBlogtoWatch, it was actually Interstellar‘s producers that reached out to Hamilton to request a stock pilot’s watch for Coop’s wrist and a custom-made watch for his daughter. With a few weeks to bring the latter from concept to production, Hamilton delivered a classic-looking automatic field watch in a brushed steel 42mm case on a black cowhide leather strap—ultimately producing ten to be used on screen. Unlike Hamilton’s iconic Khaki Field model with its inner 24-hour track and , the “Murph” has a simplified black dial detailed only with beige Deco-style Arabic numeral hour indices and Super-LumiNova® finished hands. Following nearly a half-decade of fan demands, Hamilton finally brought the Khaki Field Murph to market—in both 38mm and screen-accurate 42mm case configurations—with an affordable price tag bordering $1,000. (Yours truly owns a 38mm Khaki Field Murph, and I can attest that it is one of my favorite watches I own.)

Coop’s own Hamilton watch is the Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Day Date Auto (ref. H64615135) which had been part of their lineup since 2010, consistent with Hamilton’s heritage of making pilot watches dating back to the waning days of World War I. The watch has a 42mm stainless steel case and matching three-piece link bracelet, contrasting with the Murph’s leather band. Like the German B-Type Flieger navigational design, its large, round black dial echoes a cockpit’s view with its white-finished 12-hour inner track and surrounding silver-appliqué minute indices at five-minute increments from 10 to 50, reserving the top for an arced white window tracking days of the week, supplemented by a smaller rectangular date window at the 6 o’clock position. The Khaki Aviation Pilot Day Date is powered by Hamilton’s H-40 caliber automatic movement which, like the Khaki Field Murph’s H-10, has an extended power reserve of up to 80 hours.

(His sole other accessory is a silver-toned wedding band that he continues wearing on his left ring finger, years after his wife’s death.)

When Murph grows into an adult (now played by Jessica Chastain), she adopts much of her father’s style in her own Carhartt canvas work jacket with a brown corduroy collar… not to mention the Hamilton watch that becomes integral to her saving the future of humanity.

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What to Imbibe

Most movies can show a few guys knocking back beers without inviting much scrutiny, though the dystopian universe of Interstellar has inspired plenty of discussion about the brews that Donald and Coop drink on their front porch. After all, how would they have such easy access to bottled beer in a post-blight society where traditional brewing grains like barley have disappeared?

The answer can be found in Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s screenplay, which includes this brief moment: “Donald is pouring a bottle of corn beer into a bubbling vat of chowder.” Maize-based beers have a long history throughout Mexico and South America, including traditional varieties like Mexican tesgüino and Andean chicha. Given the abundance of corn on Coop’s farm, it’s plausible that the family could have adapted these time-honored fermentation techniques to brew their own beer.

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How to Get the Look

Coop’s rugged, timeless wardrobe of a faded Carhartt jacket, simple cotton tees, Levi’s jeans, and sturdy Red Wing boots embody a distinictly American workingman’s aesthetic, equally suited to maintaining a dusty corn farm or preparing for an expedition beyond the stars.

• Brown sandstone 12-oz. cotton duck canvas waist-length work jacket with brown corduroy collar (with underside hood snaps), brass straight front-zip, straight-zip breast pocket, slash hand pockets, bi-swing shoulder pleats, snap cuffs, and single-snap side adjuster tabs
  • Carhartt “Detroit” RNJ001 BRN (discontinued)
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt
  • James Perse
• Dark-indigo stonewash denim straight-leg jeans with five-pocket design and button-fly
  • Levi’s 501® Original Fit
• Dark-brown leather belt with a brass-toned rectangular single-prong buckle
• Amber-brown full-grain leather derby-laced 6″ cap-toe work boots
  • Red Wing Iron Ranger Heritage #8111
• Mustard nubuck work gloves
• Silver wedding band
• Stainless steel 42mm pilot’s automatic watch with round black dial (with day-date complications) on steel link bracelet
  • Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Day Date Auto H64615135

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt.