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Matthew McConaughey learns of friend’s death on red carpet

Matthew McConaughey’s stunned, heartfelt reaction to the death of playwright, actor and friend Sam Shepard has been caught on camera.

The actor was on the red carpet for his upcoming film Dark Tower when an Associated Press reporter broke the news to the Academy Award winner.

“What? Sam Shepard moved on?” a visibly shaken McConaughey asked. “Gosh damn it, from what?”

The pair worked together on the 2012 film, Mud.

“Look, I’m not going to trivialise that situation, I just heard about it for the first time,” McConaughey said.

“But I always told [director] Jeff Nichols this, look in Mud, the whole trailer for Mud could be Sam Shepard sitting in that green chair telling the boy about who Mud is. It would be about a two-and-a-half minute trailer, but it would have been really badass.

“We lost one of the great ones. Great writer, great mind,” he said, trying to come to terms with the news. “Alright, see you in the next one, Sam.”

Shepard died last Thursday at his home in Kentucky after complications related to Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as motor neurone disease.

Watch McConaughey’s heartfelt moment below:

Shepard was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years.

His breakout role came in Terrence Malick’s 1978 film Days of Heaven before he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983).

He most recently appeared in the thriller-drama Bloodline on Netflix.

Shepard is survived by his children, Jesse, Hannah, and Walker Shepard, and his sisters, Sandy and Roxanne Rogers.

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