Matthew McConaughey learns of co-star Sam Shepard's death through red carpet question

'He moved on today? Gosh damn it... we lost one of the great ones.'

You get close to people on set during weeks or months of shooting, so it must be pretty horrible to hear about the death of a co-star amid the overwhelming, often superficial environment that is the red carpet.

This is exactly what happened to Matthew McConaughey at the LA premiere of his new film The Dark Tower, however, when Associated Press asked him for a reaction to the death of Sam Shepard, whom he appeared alongside in Mud.

"Sam Shepard moved on?" McConaughey asked, putting a hand to his forehead, "gosh damnit, from what?"

The AP reporter didn't know (it was complications from Lou Gehrig's disease) but somewhat cruelly pressed him for a reaction anyway.

"Oh man if you look at - look, I’m not going to trivialize that situation, I just heard about it for the first time,” the actor said. "But I always told [director] Jeff Nichols this, look in Mud, the whole trailer for Mud could be Sam Shepard sitting in that green chair telling the boy about who Mud is. It would be about a two-and-a-half minute trailer, but it would have been really badass."

"He moved on today? Damn we lost one of the great ones... Great writer... Great mind,” he continued, still taking on board the news. "Alright, see you in the next one, Sam."

Shepard passed away at the age of 73 on 30 July. His long career saw him work – with equal acclaim – as a playwright, director, and actor; he was both a 1979 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama for his play Buried Child, and an Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor for playing pilot Chuck Yeager in 1983’s The Right Stuff.

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