Woody Harrelson Got ‘So Pissed’ at Matthew McConaughey While Filming ‘True Detective’ Because He Went Method: ‘I Wanted to Punch This Motherf—– In the Face’

Matthew McConaughey recently joined Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson on their “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast. During the episode, Harrelson recalled there were “so many times” he wanted to “punch” McConaughey while filming the first season of “True Detective” because he was method acting.

“He’s method,” Harrelson said. “When we were shooting, he was Rust Cohle. There so many times I wanted to punch this motherfucker in the face. I’m so pissed at him cause he’s in his character.”

McConaughey explained that he needed to be “stoic” between takes to stay in his character’s headspace.

“We’re sitting there. We’re about to start shooting, and we were rehearsing,” McConaughey recalled. “I’m just kind of being stoic Rust Cohle. Woody goes, like, ‘Hey man, I need to talk to you about something.’ He goes, ‘The way you and I work, McConaughey, I hit you the ball, you hit back, I hit it back to you. We volley, we play. … Man, that’s us. It’s dramatic, but it’s also comedy.'”

In HBO’s “True Detective,” Harrelson and McConaughey played a pair of Southern investigators hunting a serial killer in the esoteric back country of Louisiana. Harrelson, at one point, thought the show was too dark and suggested to McConaughey during production that they should add in some jokes.

He recalled, “I remember saying to before we started filming, I’m like, ‘Dude, people are gonna expect to laugh with us. We gotta throw some jokes in here.’ He’s just like, ‘Mhm.’ I’m waiting for him to say, ‘Yeah, you’re totally, no, none of that.’ He just, ‘Mhm, yeah.’”

“True Detective” Season 1 earned 5 Emmy Awards and is still widely considered one of the best shows in HBO’s catalog. Despite the enduring popularity, Harrelson recently told “Today” that there is “no chance” of him and McConaughey returning to “True Detective.”

“In fairness, never. No chance,” Harrelson said. “Because it turned out great. I love that it turned out the way it did, and if anything, doing another season would, I think, tarnish that.”