Matthew McConaughey Recalls How His Mom Would Make Him 'Get Back in Bed' for Coming to Breakfast with a Bad Attitude

Matthew McConaughey learned to stay grateful very early on. 

In an exclusive clip from Your Mama’s Kitchen, an Audible Original podcast hosted by journalist Michele Norris and co-produced by Higher Ground (Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's media company), Matthew and his wife Camila Alves McConaughey open up about how their family’s lessons started at the breakfast table. (The episode is part of a Mother’s Day digital content series, honoring stories from the show's past guests about their moms.)

Matthew, who’s a co-founder of both Pantalones Organic Tequila and the just keep livin Foundation with Camila, told Norris about what would happen if he brought sass to the breakfast table as a kid.

“My mom was not a good cook, but she always made sure that we had hot meals, always,” he started in the clip, shared exclusively with PEOPLE. 

It was only when he came in “grumpy,” tired or “anxious about something at school that day,” that his mom, Kay, stepped in with a certain parenting edge. 

“If my attitude wasn’t great. If I didn’t go ‘Wow, look at this! Thank you for breakfast mom,’ she’d immediately jump in and go, ‘Get your butt back to your room. Get back in bed, and do not come in this kitchen to have the breakfast that I made you until you’re ready to see the rose in the vase instead of the dust on the table,’” Matthew recalled.  

The poignant saying was “a big line for her that expanded beyond the kitchen as far as perspective and gratitude,” he explained. 

And the Dallas Buyers Club actor wasn’t kidding. He described how he and his mom would walk all the way back to his room. 

“She goes, ‘Get back in bed.’ You’d get back in bed with your clothes and your school bag and everything and get under the covers. And she’d go, ‘Now I’m going back in the kitchen. Let’s do this over. You come back in and go ‘Wow look I got scrambled eggs or I got toast again,’” he recounted. 

Once he was ready to give round two a try, he said his mother would greet him anew. 

“She goes, ‘Good morning to you sunshine. Look at that another beautiful day — wasn’t guaranteed.’ That was always the kick. You had to get started on gratitude for the day,” he said. 

Camila chimed in to draw a parallel to her own experience with kitchen table etiquette. 

“It’s the same in Brazil. It’s like you need to know who you’re eating your food from, and if the person has a bad heart, you don’t eat it. You just do not eat that person’s food,” she explained.

When Norris asked how the saying went, Camila said the “nuts and the bolts” of the Portuguese translation is “basically, ‘You need to know who you’re eating from, and if the person has bad intentions, you never eat that food,’” she said. “If that person is mad at you, you never eat that food. If you had an argument, you don’t eat it.”

Camila, who shares three kids with Matthew, shared how she still applies the food rule today. 

“It’s funny because even today with my mom like let’s say if we for whatever reason get into a little whatever, I don’t eat her food that day,” she said. Her husband added: “No you don’t.”

Camila reiterated with a laugh, “I skip!”    

The pair have been busy with their own venture into the food and beverage industry. In October, they launched Pantalones Organic Tequila. The pair is known for filming ads without pants on as a cheeky nod to the brand name — and their most recent campaign in May proved no different.   

In honor of Cinco de Mayo and the brand's pickle margarita cocktail, they played a mean game of pickleball without pants. The silly clip showed the couple playing pickleball pantless, their bottom halves blurred as they duck to hit balls across the net.

“We’re precious about our tequila, not our pants,” Matthew and Camila said in a statement.

Your Mama's Kitchen episodes are available on Audible.