Matthew McConaughey enjoys living on the edge and taking risks — including trying to eat reindeer testicles.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from the Tuesday, April 21, episode of Fox’s Bear Grylls Is Running Wild, McConaughey, 56, agrees to join Grylls for a surprising meal. Grylls, 51, tells McConaughey that the reindeer testicles “improved with cooking” before the actor tried a piece of the meat.
“Can I have another piece, please? That is a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be,” McConaughey says before making a joke about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
McConaughey later stood by his opinion that the food item is “really not bad.”
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“Texture was six out of 10 and taste was six out of 10,” he tells the cameras. “If you just got out of your head about what the heck it was and you throw the right kind of spice on it — some of my famous rub — and char the edges a little bit, you might have an eight out of 10. Could be something you put on the menu.”
Bear Grylls Is Running Wild follows the legendary adventurer as he takes celebrities into the wild for a 48-hour journey of a lifetime.
“With thrilling action and revealing conversations, Bear takes his guests on unforgettable adventures in breath-taking wilderness and reveals a side of some of your favorite people like you’ve never seen before,” the official season 9 synopsis reads. “On the season premiere Bear Grylls takes Matthew McConaughey on an adventure 20 years in the making as the two traverse the secluded glacial alpine wilderness of Norway.”
In addition to McConaughey, the upcoming episodes are set to feature Uma Thurman, Colman Domingo, Elizabeth Banks, Rhys Darby, Tiffany Haddish, Machine Gun Kelly and Michelle Monaghan.
McConaughey has already taken a step outside of the Hollywood bubble. After earning critical acclaim for roles in True Detective and The Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey reflected on making the move to Texas — and taking a break from starring in rom-com movies.
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“When I was rolling in the rom-coms, and I was the rom-com dude … that was my lane and I liked that lane, that lane paid well, and it was working,” he said on the “Good Trouble With Nick Kyrgios” podcast in November 2024. “I was so strong in that lane that anything outside of that lane, dramas and stuff that I wanted to do, [they] were like, no, no, no, no, no. Hollywood said, ‘No, no, no, no, you should stay there, stay there.’”
Following his roles in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Wedding Planner and Failure to Launch, McConaughey found himself on “autopilot” in his career.
“Since I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I stopped doing what I was doing and moved down to the ranch in Texas. I made a pact with my wife and said, ‘I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do,’” he added about wife Camila Alves. “I think that was seen as the most rebellious move in Hollywood by me because it sent a signal that he ain’t f***ing bluffing. And when you got someone who’s not bluffing, there’s something attractive about that. I think that’s what made Hollywood go, ‘You know what, he’s now a new novel idea. He’s a new bright idea.’”
McConaughey revealed he turned down a multimillion-dollar movie for more serious work.
“It was a good action comedy. It came with an $8 million offer. I said, ‘No, thank you,’” he said. “They came back with a $10 million offer. I said, ‘No, thank you.’ They came back with a $12 million offer. I said, ‘No, thank you.’ They came back with a $14.5 million offer. I said, ‘Let me read that again.’”
Bear Grylls Is Running Wild premieres on Fox Tuesday, April 21, at 9 p.m. ET.
