Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have spent years joking about the possibility that their decades-long friendship might actually be a family affair. Apple TV has decided that’s more than enough material for a comedy. The official trailer for Brothers has arrived, with the real-life best friends playing fictionalised versions of themselves and having plenty of fun taking the piss out of their own public personas. Watch the trailer above and get the details below.
One Hell of a Family Secret
The series has Woody arriving at Matthew’s Austin ranch with his family after his daughter’s engagement falls apart. It’s meant to be a healing getaway. Instead, Matthew’s mother, Ma Mac (Holland Taylor), casually drops a bombshell: there’s a chance Matthew and Woody may actually be brothers.
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Woody immediately wants answers. Matthew… not so much.
As Woody starts turning the ranch upside down in search of the truth, Matthew has another identity crisis brewing: a potential run for Governor of Texas. The trailer also gets some good mileage out of the pair’s celebrity status, including some wonderfully petty squabbling over Matthew being an Academy Award winner and Woody an Academy Award nominee.
The Rumour Is Actually Real
As detailed in a recent Vanity Fair interview, the question over whether McConaughey and Harrelson could share a father emerged during a family holiday in Greece around nine years ago.
With everyone commenting on just how similar the two actors were, McConaughey’s mother revealed that she had known Harrelson’s father before Matthew was born. Not just casually, either.
The timing was enough to get Harrelson convinced. McConaughey, less so. “Woody believed it from the get-go, and I don’t believe it from the get-go,” McConaughey told the outlet.
They still haven’t settled the matter with a DNA test.
Appropriately, every episode reportedly opens with the words: “Based on a true rumor.”
A Friendship Made for This
McConaughey and Harrelson have plenty of shared history to mine. They became friends making 1999 comedy EDtv, where, fittingly, they actually played brothers. They later reunited to considerably darker effect as detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart in acclaimed first season of True Detective.
Brothers heads firmly in the other direction. McConaughey gets the philosophical Texas-rancher treatment, Harrelson leans into his freewheeling reputation, and the two get to poke holes in the versions of themselves audiences already have in their heads.
Even the governor storyline has some truth behind it. McConaughey publicly considered entering the Texas governor race in 2021 before ultimately deciding against it.
Showrunner Lee Eisenberg told Vanity Fair that the idea was to use their lives as the starting point, rather than stay beholden to reality. “Let’s use your life as a jumping-off point, but we’re not doing a docuseries,” he recalled telling them.
Cast, Creatives, Release Date
Joining McConaughey, Harrelson and Taylor are Natalie Martinez, Brittany Ishibashi, Nolan Almeida, Ella Grace Helton, Noah Carganilla, Highdee Kuan and Oona Yaffe. Eisenberg serves as showrunner and executive producer, while Trent O’Donnell directs multiple episodes, including the pilot.
The eight-episode Brothers premieres globally on Apple TV on 23 September with its first two episodes, followed by one new episode every Wednesday through 4 November.
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