Matthew McConaughey and Mom Kay Look Back at Their ‘8-Year Hiatus’ (Exclusive)

Matthew McConaughey is extremely close to his mom Kay, but it hasn’t always been that way. 

“I’d say we’re closer now,” the Oscar winner, 55, says as he turns to Kay, 93, while holding her hand during their recent PEOPLE cover shoot. With their new film The Lost Bus about to hit AppleTV+, the pair are looking back at a photo of themselves at the premiere of A Time to Kill, which shot Matthew to fame in 1996.

“We had about an eight-year period where I had to have short conversations with her on our Sunday phone calls because she was sharing a lot of that information,” says Matthew. “I’d tell her something on Sunday between son and mom, and Tuesday I’d read about it in the news or see it in the local paper. She couldn’t help herself.”

“We were on a hiatus,” adds Kay. Matthew grins: “We had some boring conversations on Sunday. I wouldn’t tell you s-.”

The pause came after Kay, known to her family as ‘MaMac,’ took a press on a tour of Matthew’s childhood home, which Matthew saw on TV days later. The mother-son duo chuckles as they tell the story. 

“I took people through the house and said, ‘Well, this is where Matthew slept,’ ” recalls Kay. “Someone called him and said, ‘Are you watching what your mama’s doing?’ But I was so proud that I was just telling the world.”

Matthew adds, “I call her, she answers the phone. I go, ‘Mom, what’d you do?’ She says, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Don’t tell me, ‘What?’ I could hear the same show I was watching that she’s taking the camera through the house in the background. She goes, ‘Oh, that. I didn’t think you’d find out.’ ” 

The two burst into laughter. “Oh, boy! Yes,” says Kay. 

But about eight years later, “I got stable enough with my own position and fame that I was like, you know what? My mom can say whatever the hell she wants,” says Matthew. “Let’s take the lasso off and just go for it, Mom.”

“And we go to red carpets and she said, ‘Any rules?’ I was like ‘No rules at all. Tell all the raunchiest things you want.’ And she did and it was fine. It’s much more fun now.”

Matthew and Kay are currently starring in the survival thriller The Lost Bus alongside Levi, 17 — the eldest son of Matthew and his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey who also share Vida, 15 and Livingston, 12. The film is set against the 2018 Camp Fire, which burned more than 150,000 acres and killed 85 people. 

Directed by Paul Greengrass, the movie brings Kay back to the big screen following her cameo in 2011’s Bernie, and marks Levi’s acting debut.

In The Lost Bus, Matthew plays Kevin McKay, a wayward bus driver who rescues 22 schoolchildren. Kay plays Matthew’s onscreen mother, and Levi plays his son.

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Kay — who “wanted to be in acting as long as I can remember,” she tells PEOPLE — lives with Matthew and the family in Austin, Texas. Along with her star presence, the matriarch has instilled the importance of positive thinking in her children and grandchildren.

“If there’s one thing that I hopefully I passed on to the kids, it’s ‘You are what you think,’ ” says Kay. “If you think you’re dumb, you’re dumb. If you think you’re smart, you’re smart. If you think you’re handsome, you’re handsome.”

The Lost Bus streams on Apple TV+ on Oct. 3.