There’s a new adult in the McConaughey household, and dad made sure the moment didn’t pass quietly. Matthew McConaughey took to Instagram on Tuesday, July 7, to mark son Levi McConaughey’s 18th birthday, posting a photo of the two standing side by side in a grassy stretch of Austin, Texas.
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Dressed in nearly identical button-downs and jeans, the pair threw up the “Hook ’em Horns” sign, a salute to the University of Texas, where the “Dazed and Confused” star once studied.
“18. That’s a # buddy. Enjoy and handle your new freedoms. @levimcconaughey,” he wrote alongside the picture.
The Oscar winner, 56, and his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, 43, are also parents to daughter Vida, 16, and son Livingston, 13. The family has largely stayed rooted in Austin, where the couple deliberately raised their kids away from the Hollywood machine.
GettyThat makes those “new freedoms” especially significant for Levi, because the newly minted 18-year-old wants to act, and his father has finally made peace with it.
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GettyFor years, the actor was firmly against the idea.
“The first 15 years in Hollywood I was like, ‘I’d never want my kid to grow up in the business,'” he shared with People back in September. “And when I hit about 40, right about the time we had Levi, I looked around at how many special people I’ve met in my life, how much travel and what an awesome, healthy, cool experience that’s been for me in my life.”
Then came the moment of self-interrogation. “I was like, ‘Where are you coming up with this idea you don’t want any of your kids to do it?'” He recalled, before landing somewhere warmer: “It’d be a privilege if they would be able to.”
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The True Detective alum is not pretending the path ahead will be easy. “There’s a line between entitlement and shame. If you can look it right in the eye and deal with it, and if it works out, you’ll see, it’s a hell of a roller coaster,” he told People.
He added that staying grounded will be one of the biggest challenges. “It’s hard to keep your feet on the ground to sift out the real stuff from the BS. It’s important that he has his own ownership of who he is and becomes. And [acting] will be a part of that if he continues to do it, part of finding his identity, but it can’t be his full identity.”
Levi, for his part, seems prepared for the attention that comes with following famous parents into Hollywood.
“As much as people can say, ‘You got this because of your father or your mother,'” the teen told the outlet, “they can open the door, but then it’s going to be up to me to do my thing once I get in there. That’s on me.”
Why Fatherhood Remains His Proudest Role
GettyThe “Gentlemen” actor has never been shy about ranking dad duty above everything on his resume. Chatting with Bear Grylls during an April episode of “Bear Grylls Is Running Wild,” he called being a “good father to a son or a daughter” the “greatest art” a man can create.
And at home, everyone knows who caves first. As he cheerfully admitted to Town & Country in June 2020, he’s “more consistently the yes guy” of the two parents.
