Quick, don’t look this up, just answer: How long has it been since Matthew McConaughey starred in a live-action movie? If your answer was anything more recent than 2019 Guy Ritchie flick The Gentlemen, your McConaughbration is way off: It’s now been roughly six years since McConaughey last appeared in anything other than a voice role, which he has continued to dole out for the Sing franchise, and his oddball Netflix cartoon Agent Elvis. (He was supposed to be getting involved with the Yellowstone universe with some kind of spin-off, but that’s gone extremely quiet over the last year.) Now, though, it sounds like the man’s ready to step away from his important tuna salad plans and actually get in front of the cameras again: Deadline reports that McConaughey is set to star in Paul Greengrass’ upcoming film The Rage, about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England.
As much as we here at The A.V. Club‘s Newswire Desk would love to summarize the Wikipedia entry for this 640-year-old labor conflict for you, it’s actually pretty long; suffice it to say that British peasants were pissed off about high taxes and miserable living conditions and having just gotten over that pesky Black Death, and expressed that ire by sacking the Tower Of London, killing a bunch of royal officials, and generally going into open revolt. McConaughey is reportedly slated to play one of the leaders of the rebellion; the casting reports don’t name names, presumably so as to avoid spoilers for anyone whose reading of British history has only gotten up to 1380, but he’ll presumably be playing farmer-turned-rebel-leader Wat Tyler. Tyler’s history is a bit spotty, historical records of 14th century serfs not being as robust as you might expect, but he famously led the popular forces in battle throughout 1381 before being killed during negotiations with King Richard II.
This isn’t the first time McConaughey has opted to play a noted historical rebel; his 2016 film Free State Of Jones saw him portray Newton Knight, a sort of double-rebel, who fought for the Confederacy before launching an independent anti-Confederate insurrection in his native Mississippi. Greengrass, meanwhile, is coming off a fallow period of his own: His most recent film was the 2020 Tom Hanks vehicle News Of The World.
