Matthew McConaughey recalls launching iconic phrase 'McConaissance' ten years ago

Matthew McConaughey shared a funny story regarding the term "McConaissance" that he created at that time for himself.

10 years after the iconic term 'McConaissance,' McConaughey said that he played a massive role in his comeback that he even came up with a phrase about it.

In a conversation with comedian Chelsea Handler on his iHeart podcast Dear Chelsea on Thursday, the actor looked back at his acting career to date.

The 53-year-old actor, who is tipped to make his return to television in a new Yellowstone spinoff series, reflected back at his transition from playing love interests in movies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) and Failure to Launch (2006) and landed more serious roles that "Hollywood was not offering me before" in the 2010s.

"We got the McConaissance," Handler noted.

Handler and her producer Catherine Law then started wondering aloud about the origin of the term, then the 53-year-old actor said that he actually coined the viral phrase himself.

"Oh jeez, it was some self-marketing," he said, laughing.

McConaughey then recalled the story of how it all went down, while promoting his film Mud in 2012, at a 2013 film festival, a journalist on the red carpet told him, "You're on a roll right now, man. It needs a name of something."

The actor said that he responded with a little white lie and told the reporter: "Yeah, I was talking to this guy a minute ago and he actually called it the McConaissance."