matthew
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“Today is a sad day with the passing of Sam Shepard. You guys worked together a lot,” said an Associated Press reporter to a visibly stunned Matthew McConaughey. “What?” the actor replied. “Sam Shepard moved on?”

It was a candid and very real moment as the 47-year-old took in the news that his Mud co-star Shepard (and one of the most prolific and important Pulitzer-Winning Playwrights of his generation) had died from reported complications from Lou Gehrig’s disease – a muscle weakening and degenerative illness that is currently incurable. “Look, I’m not going to trivialize that situation, I just heard about it for the first time,” McConaughey said. “But I always told [director] Jeff Nichols this, look in ‘Mud,’ the whole trailer for ‘Mud’ could be Sam Shepard sitting in that green chair telling the boy about who Mud is. It would be about a two-and-a-half minute trailer, but it would have been really badass.”

“We lost one of the great ones. Great writer, great mind,” he said, pausing. “Alright, see you in the next one, Sam.”

On the red carpet in New York to promote his new film Dark Tower with Idris Elba, watch the heart-breaking moment here.