Matthew McConaughey Went Off Grid in Peru for 22 Days, Changed Name to Mateo
Matthew McConaughey is no stranger to going off the grid, but fans might be surprised to learn he moved to Peru - and changed his name - in the ‘90s to escape his fame and reset before becoming an even bigger star.
"I needed to get my feet on the ground," McConaughey, 56, recalled during the May 5 episode of the "No Magic Pill with Blake Mycoskie" podcast. " But at the same time, I needed to enjoy [that] all of a sudden the world was ‘yes' to me."
The actor, who initially rose to fame with 1993's Dazed and Confused, noted that everyone knew his name following the success of 1996's A Time to Kill, which led him to check out of Hollywood and travel to Peru under the name Mateo.
"So I click out. Boom. Go to Peru. I needed to find it - to check the validation. I knew I had it, I just had to go prove it again," McConaughey explained of his reason to go somewhere and be someone different.
He recalled, "But I did question, ‘Oh, like, OK, now that I just got famous, I've got all this affiliation for this and that and the other,' and I'm trying to decipher which part's real, which part's bulls***."
McConaughey said his trip lasted 22 days - which is the length of time he usually goes off-grid - noting that the first 12 days were "wonky."
The last 10 days, however, were "great" and led the Oscar winner to know it was time to go back.
"I was now at the place long enough to go, ‘I could live this. This could be my existence,'" McConaughey shared. "As soon as you go, ‘I could do this,' then you're like, ‘Well, I can return home.'"
Looking back, McConaughey explained that he chose to use a fake name while in Peru because, "When you get famous, what happens is there's a few salutations that are skipped" and people stop asking your name or what you do.
"I needed to meet people who knew me as Mateo. That was it," he said. "And at the end of 22 days, the tears in their eyes and the tears in my eyes and the hugs we had on the sadness and happiness of saying goodbye were all based off of the man they met named Mateo, who had nothing to do with the celebrity and the experience and times we had together for 22 days."
According to McConaughey, that experience "reaffirmed my own identity that, ‘Oh, I got it. This is based on me.'"
While McConaughey did return to Hollywood and have even more success with rom-coms like The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days as well as dramas such as Dallas Buyers Club, his soul-searching trips still happen from time to time. (He currently lives in his home state of Texas.)
In fact, McConaughey revealed earlier in the podcast that he went on another solo trip to unplug while writing his 2025 book, Poems & Prayers, which includes reflections on his life's ups and downs.
"I packed all my diaries away along with my steaks, water and tequila, and went to a place that had no electricity in the middle of the desert," McConaughey recalled, "where I was locked in with nothing but me and who I've been in my past diaries."
The Interstellar star noted, "I learned from previous trips that there's an initiation period when we go away with ourselves where the demons on our back are dancing and having a good time at our expense. Where the guilt can get really heavy. The shame can get heavy."
He teased, "And I know for me, I do not enjoy my own company for a little while when I go off on these trips."
Like his ‘90s pilgrimage, McConaughey said that around day 12 he "all of sudden" has a "purge or a wake-up and I go, ‘OK, dude. What are we going to forgive? And what are we going to change?'"
McConaughey concluded, "Instead of maybe crying about it or going pounding and making our knuckles bleed over it, there comes the breakthrough."
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This story was originally published May 15, 2026 at 2:50 PM.