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Matthew McConaughey, 56, and Woody Harrelson, 65, on Friendship
Their nearly 30-year bond offers a window into what it takes for men to sustain friendships after 50
4-minute read
Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, seen here on Sept. 10, 2026, vacation together with their families and spend time doing activities together.
Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images
Key takeaways
- Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have maintained a decades-long friendship through vacations, sports and direct conversations.
- An AARP survey of adults 45-plus found 58 percent of Gen X men said they want deeper relationships with friends, compared with 35 percent of boomer men.
- Shared interests can make it easier for men to connect.
Matthew McConaughey, 56, and Woody Harrelson, 65, have spent nearly three decades working and playing together. They have vacationed together with their families, talked through personal crises and kept coming back to each other after disagreements.
The actors got to know each other while playing brothers in the 1999 movie EdTV, and about 15 years later, they costarred in the first season of HBO’s True Detective. Their new Apple TV comedy, Brothers, fictionalizes their longtime friendship and the possibility that they could actually be half-brothers.
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In a Sept. 22 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Harrelson was asked about that possibility.
“It’s nice to think of him as my brother. He is more my brother than my brothers in reality,” Harrelson said, referring to their longstanding friendship.
For many men, the challenge is keeping close friendships active, as schedules, responsibilities and social circles change with age.
Why male friendships can change after 50
The AARP Friendship Study, conducted in October 2025 among adults 45-plus with at least one close friend, found that friendship matters to nearly all the men surveyed. Ninety-five percent said friends are an essential part of a happy and healthy life.
Many of those friendships go back decades. On average, men reported having about four close friends, and 57 percent said they had known their close friends for more than 20 years.
But having longtime friends does not always mean men feel as connected as they would like. Fifty-eight percent of Generation X men said they wanted deeper, more meaningful relationships with their friends. Among boomer men, 35 percent said the same.
Keeping friendships going can also get harder when life gets busy or friends move farther away. The report points to work, marriage, children and caring for aging parents as some of the demands Gen X men may be juggling.
What Harrelson and McConaughey get right
Harrelson and McConaughey have continued to build new experiences on top of their long history. The New York Times reported on Sept. 19 that their families have vacationed together on the same Greek island for the past 10 years.
Activities are also on their agenda. The men told the New York Times that their days included swimming, tennis, kiteboarding and sailing. McConaughey described how playing Ping-Pong or having a swimming contest can lead to conversations about the “personal, business and spiritual.”
“Eighty percent of our conversations are about how to be better men, how to be better husbands, how to be better fathers, how to be better citizens, how to be better friends, what’s bugging us, where we failed,” McConaughey said.
Those conversations can include difficult stretches. McConaughey recalled sitting with Harrelson during a personal crisis while Harrelson cried. Their friendship also survived tension while filming True Detective.
After six months of filming, McConaughey could tell there was tension between them. McConaughey grabbed Harrelson by the head and told him, “Tell me, just say what you feel.”
Harrelson connected that moment directly to the durability of their relationship.
“That’s why we’ve stayed good over the years,” he told the New York Times.
How men can make friends after age 50
Finding new friends may be as easy as starting with something you already enjoy. Dr. Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, told AARP in 2024 that shared interests can make it easier to connect. “One of the easiest ways to make new friends is to do something you care about — you have an immediate subject in common, so you have something to talk about,” he said.
It also helps to make a plan. Psychotherapist Robert Garfield told AARP in the same article to suggest something specific, such as a bike ride or a drink at a favorite brewery. And if a friendship has faded, reaching out can work better than assuming too much time has passed. Waldinger said people who reconnect with old friends are often surprised by how happy the other person is to hear from them, calling them “a small investment that often gets positive results.”
For men who hesitate to reach out, Waldinger offered another reason to try: “Men get scared that they’ll be rebuffed, just by wanting to get close.”
Harrelson and McConaughey’s friendship shows how meaningful conversations can grow out of time spent doing something together. They compete, then talk about what is happening in their lives.
The two actors have had their share of differences and say they deal with them directly rather than letting them sit. Near the end of the New York Times interview, McConaughey discussed what happens after the arguments.
“We always end up hugging it out. I love you, buddy, that’s it,” McConaughey said.
“That’s how brothers do each other,” Harrelson replied.
“That is how brothers do each other,” McConaughey said.
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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