When Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey play exaggerated versions of their very famous selves in “Brothers”– right down to lookalike TV spouses, a potential McConaughey governor's run and a 30-year friendship – there’s one obvious question: How much of the Apple TV comedy series (first two episodes now streaming) is actually real?
Speaking to McConaughey, 56, and a noticeably shoeless, perpetually grinning Harrelson, 65, USA TODAY asked the longtime friends to lay a truth percentage on “Brothers.”
“65%,” McConaughey says immediately, surprising Harrelson.
“Really? I’d go lower,” Harrelson says, settling on a 36 percent truth percentage. "It’s based on us. But all the stories and characters are different.”
“Maybe I have a different definition
of ‘based,’” McConaughey adds. “Maybe I give ‘based’ with a capital B in bold letters, and you give it lofty, lowercase cursive.”
Whatever anyone's definition of "based," “Brothers” takes its biggest swing at truth from the persistent, bizarrely plausible rumor that the two might actually be biological brothers. Each episode begins with the cheeky disclaimer, "Based on a true rumor." It’s a legit rumor born from the two families’ intertwined histories.
McConaughey’s own mother, Kay "Ma Mac" McConaughey, fueled the possibility when she suggested that she “knew” Harrelson’s absentee father, Charles Harrelson, during a period when McConaughey’s parents were separated – raising the holy-cow possibility that Charles Harrelson could be McConaughey’s biological father. The timeline fits.
Harrelson, who says he's willing to"cross swords"with McConaughey in some sort of joint urine-based DNA test, says McConaughey prefers to keep his head and zipper up, while moving on.
"I think it's BS," McConaughey explains of the brother linkage.
"That's 100 percent true," Harrelson says. "He wants to think it's BS, but he doesn't think it's BS. His mom and my dad did the horizontal bebop and they created this specimen right here."
McConaughey insists he just doesn't want to take the test to protect Harrelson's feeling.
"Because if it's not true, my buddy here is gonna be upset," McConaughey says. "I don't want that to happen."
Harrelson really did drive a magic bus seen in 'Brothers'
In "Brothers," Harrelson and his family live in a technicolor bus on the McConaughey’s property – an exact replica of the biodiesel-powered “Mothership” former Chicago transit bus that Harrelson drove.
"The bus is real, or at least it's a one-to-one approximation," showrunner Lee Eisenberg says. "But we were not making a documentary here."
The families are in the ballpark, too. Harrelson has three daughters with his wife, Laura Louie. In “Brothers,” Brittany Ishibashi plays his wife, Joy, with Highdee Kuan and Oona Yaffe playing the couple's daughters, Olive and Kai.
McConaughey has three children with his real wife, Camila Alves. His “Brothers” family mirrors that setup, with Natalie Martinez playing wife Valentina and Nolan Almeida, Ella Grace Helton and Noah Carganilla playing their three children, Wyatt, Clara and River.
The real children are wildly different, admits Almeida, 18, who plays an adorably awkward version of McConaughey's 18-year-old actor son Levi.
"The show teeters between real-life and fiction, but my character is entirely fictional," Almeida says. "Levi has swagger. He's cool, like his father. My character Wyatt is not that at all."
Ma Mac is played by an outrageously fake-tanned Holland Taylor, the Emmy-winning star of "Two and a Half Men," who stirs up heightened TV trouble between the two longtime friends.
A major point in the truth column is the friendship and chaotic energy between the screen version of McConaughey and Harrelson and the real-life versions. The two "True Detective" stars stir up laughs and mishaps everywhere they go, including a seemingly routine trophy presentation at the Sept. 14 Emmy Awards.
The two joked onstage for an extended time onstage before the final award for best comedy series.
"They told us that they were under!" McConaughey insists about the Emmy producers. "They said, we've never said this before, but please stretch it out."
After finally giving the award to "Widow's Bay," a red shirt-wearing Harrelson neglected to exit the stage, and stood amid celebrating cast and crew, trapped but smiling during the acceptance speech.
"It would have been awkward just to walk away," Harrelson says. "So I just kind of embraced it."
"There's the genius of Woody Harrelson right there," McConaughey says.
The duo insist there's no more secrets on which to base a "Brothers" Season 2, which hasn't been discussed, partially pending the show's performance on Apple TV.
"Talking about Season 2 is kind of like writing your acceptance speech before you've won the award," says McConaughey.
"You know I had an acceptance speech in my pocket at the Emmys," adds Harrelson. "I never did get a chance to read that."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What's really true in 'Brothers'? McConaughey, Harrelson set record straight
