Matthew McConaughey was ‘not in a good place.’ He says this helped.

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TORONTO – Matthew McConaughey has a reputation for being a likable and cool guy. For those still on the fence, here’s some new evidence to that fact: The man wrote a poem about the ideal time and place to take a morning poo.In a little life lesson he calls “Deuces” (naturally), McConaughey recalls driving in Texas at 6 a.m. “with my stomach in knots, my prostate in a pinch” and finding a “roadside loo” at its cleanest.“We've all been there!” he cackles in an animated interview with USA TODAY. “Doesn't matter if it's the porta-potty or the Shangri-La, baby. As long as it's the first butt on the porcelain, amen.”In his new book “Poems & Prayers” (out now), the Oscar-winning actor pens proverbs, lyrical prose and assorted “ditties” on a wide variety of topics, from love and life to time and faith. Not to say he’s giving up the day job yet: McConaughey, 55, stars in the true-life disaster thriller “The Lost Bus” (in theaters Friday, streaming on Apple TV+ Oct. 3), based on California’s deadly Camp Fire in 2018.His character, school bus driver Kevin McKay, could probably use some of McConaughey’s helpful bon mots. Kevin’s struggling with both his family and professional lives when he gets the call to get a class full of school kids and their teacher (America Ferrera) to safety through falling power lines, nasty wind gusts and unpredictable flames.“The guy can't catch a break and every time the going gets tough, he's out the door,” McConaughey says. That setup “makes it much more dramatic for him at the end to choose, ‘Alright, if I want to get through hell, I’ve got to drive down the dragon's throat and right through hell.'"McConaughey learned how to drive a school bus for the role, which he likens to having “my own little amusement park.” He navigated exploding fires, random curbs and falling telephone poles, first doing it in the real bus and then doing the same scene a day later on set in a stunt contraption with young costars.“We couldn't have the kids out there when I'm driving like a bat out of hell trying to stay alive,” he says. “I got to where the stuntmen were going, ‘Yeah, you do got this.’ And I stayed in that bus seat. I loved it. It was dangerous but it was fun.”Making a movie means usually having only one job but the joy of crafting a book, for McConaughey, is having many. “I’m writing it, I'm directing it. I'm the cinematographer. I'm the editor. I've worked with editors, but I'm the one going, ‘Oh yeah, I agree. Let's cut this,'” McConaughey says. “It's a wonderfully lonely process. I always thought I was going to be a monk for a while, and that's what writing is. I go off and I monk out.”Matthew McConaughey releases book of poetry and prayersA follow-up to his 2020 memoir “Greenlights” and his 2023 children’s book “Just Because,” “Poems & Prayers” features poems inspired by his daughter, the mobile game “Candy Crush,” a Vietnam bike ride with his buddy Woody Harrelson, and “the consequences of good lovin’.” There are serious and deep thoughts, but also hilarious confessionals, like telling a story about how McConaughey got so high smoking “Mexican dirt weed” one time that he listened to Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” 32 times in a row instead of attending his own birthday party.Why so many? “I don't know,” McConaughey says with a laugh. “I was sitting there crying over that song. I thought it was more important than celebrating my birth. And I went in, everybody had left the party they threw for me. It was over. I missed it!"Writing “Greenlights” forced McConaughey to deal with his past for the first time, and he continues that self-examination in “Poems & Prayers.”“The first 14 days of sitting back looking at my journals, I was embarrassed and full of shame and remorse: ‘What an arrogant SOB you were,’” McConaughey says. “I started noticing like, ‘Well dude, you put yourself in a position to get humiliated the next month and learn your lesson.’ Instead of feeling the shame and the guilt, I started to chuckle and go, 'That's kind of how life goes, isn't it?’“That's kind of how most our lives go. There's a rhythm to that. There's a lyric to that.”Whatever good you believe in, Matthew McConaughey says 'we can use more of it'Finding rhythm is a big part of McConaughey’s overall existence. In the book, he writes about how people tell him all the time, “You’re so laid back, so cool,” but it’s by design: The A-lister prepares and plans for the day ahead, which allows him to “saunter” rather than race through it. He says he “had some semblance” of that mindset as a teenager, but it became concrete while “not in a good place” living in Australia at 18.“It was a year where I had to wake up each morning and go, ‘Am I going to go through this, bump my head into everything and not find any rhythm through the day?’ No, I'm going to dance through these fricking raindrops and just trust that if I keep at it, I'll find a song,” McConaughy recalls.“That's a good way to think about life," he figures. "Even in those times when we're confused or lost and don't have any certainty, you can find rhyme in that even. (I) create a meter for myself where, well, of course I stepped in (expletive) again. I’m laughing at it now. It pissed me off the last two weeks but I'm so tired of it and I keep doing it. I'm such a repeat offender, I'm going to start giggling. That can even become a way of dealing with it and finding a new rhythm that can confirm our way. And all of a sudden, there's rhythm to this chaos.”We’ll see if he hops in a school bus for it, but McConaughey’s taking “Poems & Prayers” on the road for a "revival" book tour. Musicians are meeting him in each city – Jon Bon Jovi in Brooklyn, Jon Batiste in Austin, John Mayer in LA – to play while McConaughey reads his works and performs spoken-word songs.“I’m peddling belief,” he says. “I think we're in short supply of it. And whether that's belief in God, belief in yourself, belief in your kid's future, whatever that may be, we can use more of it.”