In his new film, “White Boy Rick,” Matthew McConaughey plays the father of a teenager who went undercover as a police informant and drug dealer. Based on a true story, the son, Rick Wershe Jr., ended up abandoned by the people he was providing information to and and was sentenced to life in prison without parole for a drug conviction. For Matthew, the film deals with how important family is as well as issues around the cycle of poverty in America. Asked what the movie shows about “families that are just struggling to get by,” the star recently implied to THR, somewhat controversially, that kids growing up in single-parent, financially challenged homes may be prone to getting into more trouble than kids who grow up with two parents on more stable financial footing. “It’s kind of a stark reminder that we see every day — that a two-parent home is usually a healthier home, that you can trace a lot of things back to [family dynamics],” he said. “Actually my wife and I work with after-school kids who come from a lot of single-parent homes, and a lot of the trouble that these children are getting into from lack of support back home is very scientific. It’s also, some of these people, like the character I play, they’re born into it. Their hearts are in the right place, but they don’t have the means to succeed, and it can be cyclical.”
