Summary
- Matthew McConaughey's iconic chant in The Wolf of Wall Street was not originally in the script, but was part of his own relaxation technique.
- The chant became one of the most memorable parts of the movie and is on par with McConaughey's famous "Alright, alright, alright" line.
- The launch line in the script helped inform McConaughey's character and explains why the chest pounding and singing works so well in the film.
The chant Matthew McConaughey performs in real-life New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort, with the film charting his hedonistic rise and fall. The movie was both a critical and commercial smash, with an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and $407 million at the box office, via Box Office Mojo.
The film features an ensemble of talented actors in nearly every role, including Matthew McConaughey as Mark Hanna, a senior stockbroker. For McConaughey, The Wolf of Wall Street came smack in the middle of a period dubbed "The McConaissance". This found Matthew McConaughey in a string of great performances including in The Dallas Buyers Club and the first season of True Detective. One of the most memorable scenes of The Wolf of Wall Street sees Hanna take Belfort out for lunch, where he performs a strange chant that involves thumping his chest and humming. Confused at first, Belfort soon s in, and steps into the world of high-intensity trading.
Every Cameo In The Wolf Of Wall Street
A lot of things happen in The Wolf of Wall Street, and it's easy to miss cameos and smaller roles from some familiar faces. Here's the list.
Matthew McConaughey's Wolf Of Wall Street Chant Is The Actor's Real-Life Relaxation Tool
It turns out this wasn't in the script. It's actually part of an acting ritual/relaxation technique Matthew McConaughey sometimes uses while getting ready to shoot scenes, via Twitter. He claims this helps him get out of his head prior to filming, and he did this chant in front of DiCaprio while they were prepping the lunch scene. It was DiCaprio who suggested to McConaughey and Scorsese as they were about to wrap the scene that maybe Hanna could do the chant during their conversation, so they quickly shot the character performing his ritual as musical bookends.
The chant Matthew McConaughey hums in The Wolf of Wall Street soon became one of the most iconic parts of the movie and is right up there in popularity with the actor's own "Alright, alright, alright" from Dazed And Confused. The movie also features the "One of Us" chant, which is a reference to the 1930s horror movie Freaks.
McConaughey's Wolf Of Wall Street Launchpad Line Explained
In his Twitter video, McConaughey talks about a "Launchpad line." What this is, according to the actor, is a line in a script that gets his imagination working as he tries to figure out who he is playing. In The Wolf of Wall Street, that line is the one where Hanna talks about how "cocaine and hookers" are the key to succeeding in this business. Once McConaughey read that in the script, it launched him into a search to find out exactly what kind of person would say something like that, which then informed the character for the rest of the movie.
It's this launch line that helps explain why Hanna's chest pounding and singing works so well in The Wolf of Wall Street. A man whose first line is about "cocaine and hookers" would also be the same kind of person to make an aggressive, ridiculous spectacle of himself in the middle of a dining room.
