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. Continue reading →