Matthew McConaughey stars in The Lost Bus, showcasing heroism in California’s deadliest wildfire
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In The Lost Bus, Matthew McConaughey plays a school bus driver and struggling father who risks his life to rescue 22 children.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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TORONTO – American actor Matthew McConaughey returned to the big screen after several years away from high-profile films with the world premiere on Sept 5 of a new docudrama, The Lost Bus, at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Inspired by journalist Lizzie Johnson’s book, Paradise: One Town’s Struggle To Survive An American Wildfire (2021), the film offers a glimpse into the intensity and magnitude of the real-life tragedy of the 2018 Camp Fire.
The inferno claimed 85 lives and was the deadliest wildfire in California history.
McConaughey plays Kevin McKay, a school bus driver and struggling father who risks his life to rescue 22 children, racing against scorching flames that threaten their escape.
The film premieres at a time wildfires are fresh in the minds of many American viewers. Wildfires in Southern California in January killed at least 30 people, and Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire season on record.
McConaughey, 55, said The Lost Bus explores the subject of the relationship between humans and Mother Nature.
“The message is in your face and the reality is in your face,” he told Reuters ahead of the film’s premiere.
In the film, he is joined by Oscar-nominated actress America Ferrera (Barbie, 2023), who plays an elementary school teacher fighting alongside him for survival.
“To me, the story is deeply about a human journey, about resilience and also about choices,” Ferrera, 41, said.
McConaughey’s real-life son Levi, 17, and mother Kay, 93, play McKay’s son and mother.
The actor has two other children – daughter Vida, 15, and son Livingston, 12 – with his wife, Brazilian-American model Camila Alves, 42.
(From left) Matthew McConaughey arrives with his wife Camila Alves, his mother Kay and his son Levi for the screening of the film The Lost Bus during the 50th annual Toronto International Film Festival on Sept 5.
PHOTO: EPA
The Lost Bus is McConaughey’s second film in 2025, following the crime thriller The Rivals Of Amziah King.
The Oscar-winning actor of Dallas Buyers Club (2013) had kept a relatively low profile in recent years, during which he explored politics, even mulling a run for Texas governor that has not yet materialised.
Instead, he “got the writer’s bug” – penning a best-selling memoir, Greenlights (2020), and has a new book, Poems & Prayers, due out on Sept 16.
“Any time well spent with another vocation, or creating some kind of art or hanging out with my family, you mature as an actor when you come back to the screen,” he said.
McConaughey was lured back for The Lost Bus by English director Paul Greengrass, who has previously dramatised real-life pirate kidnappings (Captain Phillips, 2013) and terror attacks (United 93, 2006).
The actor met the real-life McKay and said the whole experience had caused him to ponder “the long-standing definition of what the heck’s a hero or not?”
“I don’t know. But there definitely seems to be a heroic act, to go towards a crisis instead of from it,” he said.
The Lost Bus will arrive in select cinemas in the United States on Sept 19, with streaming available on Apple TV+ beginning on Oct 3. REUTERS, AFP
