Matthew McConaughey has revealed he thinks actor Woody Harrelson could be his real brother following a revelation from his mother.
The A Time to Kill star, 53, admitted his mum knew Harrelson's father, perhaps intimately, which has led to speculation over their relation.
The actors have been close friends for decades after working together on EDtv and True Detective and their kids even call each other "uncle".
Matthew has said their families often get pictures of the pair confused, with each family mistakenly thinking Matthew is Woody, 61, and vise versa.
“In Greece a few years ago, we’re sitting around talking about how close we are and our families.
“And my mom is there, and she says, ‘Woody, I knew your dad.’ Everyone was aware of the ellipses that my mom left after ‘knew.’ It was a loaded K-N-E-W," McConaughey said on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast.
The bombshell from Matthew's mum led to him investigating his family history.
He found out Woody's dad was on furlough at the same time his own parents were going through their second divorce.
“Look, it’s a little easier for Woody to say, ‘Come on, let’s do [DNA tests],’ because what’s the skin in it for him?” McConaughey added.
“It’s a little harder for me because he’s asking me to take a chance to go, ‘Wait a minute, you’re trying to tell me my dad may not be my dad after 53 years of believing that?’ I got a little more skin in the game.”
Matthew and Woody are set to reunite on screen again in a new Apple TV+ comedy where they star as fictionalized versions of themselves as they bring their families under the same roof on a Texas ranch.
It is unclear if the real-life speculation factors into the 10-part series, Brother From Another Mother.
Woody Harrelson was just a young boy when he discovered a shocking family secret via a local radio news broadcas t in 1972.
I was 11 or 12 when I heard his name mentioned on a car radio," he told The Guardian.
"I was in the car waiting for a lady who was picking me up from school, helping my mum, and anyway I was listening to the radio and it was talking about Charles V Harrelson and his trial for murder and blah blah blah blah and I’m sitting there thinking there can’t be another Charles V Harrelson. I mean, that’s my dad!"
His father, Charles V Harrelson, was first jailed in 1973 for the murder of grain dealer Sam Degelia Jr. He was sentenced to a 15-year custodial sentence, but released after five.
In 1981 when Harrelson Snr. received another life sentence for the assassination of Texan district judge, John H Wood.
In the following years Woody ploughed "millions" of dollars into the possibility of a re-trial, despite not necessarily believing he deserved one.
All attempts were denied and Harrelson Snr. died on 15 March, 2007, in a Colorado penitentiary.
