Witness Matthew McConaughey at His Sun-Baked, Kitten-Cuddling Best
Sam Hayes’s job was to listen to Steely Dan with Matthew McConaughey. Well, sort of. Hayes was director Harmony Korine’s assistant through his process of writing The Beach Bum, the story of a troubled writer and stoner floating along in Florida. “When we started shooting, I kind of ended up just being a liaison between [Korine] and McConaughey. McConaughey stayed in his character for kind of the whole shoot,” said Hayes. And that character listened to a lot of ’70s stoner rock.
Hayes was in charge of the boom box, and also of taking photos behind the scenes, which weren’t so different from the weird, wild world happening in the movie. “The way Harmony directs, he kind of, it's kind of like, it's like the scene doesn't end at the edge of the frame,” said Hayes. “It was kind of just like, in some senses, documenting what was going on on the other side.” In these exclusive shots, Hayes walks us through the smoke-filled, sunburned, radical world of Moondog. (Or McConaughey. You can never quite tell the difference.)