Matthew McConaughey sat before a roomful of aspiring young actors and filmmakers this February at his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. He was speaking at Variety and CNN’s town hall that featured the “Dallas Buyers Club” Oscar winner alongside his “Interstellar” co-star Timothée Chalamet.
McConaughey had just been asked about the future of Hollywood, given the astonishing advances of AI. He issued a call to arms. “It’s already here,” he said. “It’s not going to be enough to sit on the sidelines and make the moral plea that ‘No, this is wrong’; there’s too much money to be made, and it’s too productive. So I say, own yourself — voice, likeness, etc. Trademark it, whatever you gotta do, so when it comes, no one can steal you.”
In 2023, McConaughey and his legal team filed for eight trademarks. Those included a sound mark on audio of the actor saying, “Alright, alright, alright!” — his memorable line from the 1993 comedy “Dazed and Confused” — a seven-second video clip of him standing on a porch; a three-second clip of him sitting in front of a Christmas tree; and audio of him saying, “Just keep livin’, right? I mean, what are we gonna do?”
In 2025, after two years in review, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the trademarks. In a statement, McConaughey explained his reasoning: “My team and I want to know that when my voice or likeness is ever used, it’s because I approved and signed off on it. We want to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world.”
