For $6, today’s Groupon gets you one ticket to see The Lincoln Lawyer, arriving in theaters this Friday, March 18. This Groupon is good for any ticket booked through Fandango during the film’s theatrical run. Based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer stars Matthew McConaughey as Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Mick Haller, who operates his practice from the backseat of a Lincoln sedan. (Click here to read a synopsis of the film and watch the trailer.) Groupon recently spoke with McConaughey in an exclusive interview about The Lincoln Lawyer, rocks, and dorks.

Groupon: The movie has a pretty stellar cast—Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy, and Bryan Cranston, among others. How did working alongside such actors and actresses affect your performance?

MM: It makes it easier. It does. Sometimes people pose that question to the other side and say, “Isn’t that harder?” And it’s just not. It definitely makes it easier when you’re working with great actors. And it made it so much for me, because I got to work with all of them, at different times. And I had very different relationships with each one of them. So that made it very fun for me. But it always makes it easier when you’re working with a talented actor, for sure.

Groupon: The Lincoln Lawyer marks the third time you’ve played an attorney, after A Time to Kill and Amistad. What draws you to playing lawyers?

MM: I’m kinda fascinated by what they do and how the hand of justice swings and how the system works and how a guy like this—Mick Haller—works within the system, makes the system work for him. You know, you go back to A Time to Kill–that was much more of an idealistic character at the beginning of his career. Mick Haller’s not that idealistic—he understands how it all works, and he’s a mover and a shaker and makes it work for him. Amistad was more of a biography. But all three places, I’ve been on the defense, if you notice, which is a place that I—I didn’t really think about it—but it’s a place I naturally am drawn to. I actually thought that’s what I was going to do with my career. While I was in college, I was headed toward law school and really thought that was going to be my career in life––to be a criminal defense attorney. So now I get to go do it for six months, retire, and go do something else.

Groupon: The Lincoln Lawyer is about an attorney who works out of a car. Did you spend a lot of time in cars to prepare for the role?

MM: No, that one was easy for me. I’ve been customizing vehicles—my personal vehicles—since I was 16. So I’ve done it to every car I’ve ever had, and then I moved up to a van. And I had a van as my mobile office. I had the whole backend of the van tricked out—A/C outlets, a couch, swirling tables and revolving chairs, and fax machines and printers and everything. And then I moved to trailers, and then I moved to my own home. So that one was easy for me.

Groupon: You were voted Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine in 2005. Talk about the campaign trail leading up to that victory.

MM: The campaign trail? We hit 50 states, we got on the bus, we went out and stood on the pulpit and had many a filibuster (laughs). Um, you’d have to tell me what I was doing. The campaign trail would be all the way since 1969 leading up to 2005, so whatever I did in those 35 years, that was the campaign trail (laughs).

Groupon: You recently told Men’s Fitness that you like to lift rocks to stay in shape. Are there certain qualities you look for in the rocks you lift?

MM: Yeah, you don’t want it to be a concrete rock where they put it together with concrete and caught some shards in glass. Actually, what that was about, that was a story when I was down in Mexico at a place that obviously had no gyms, so the point was you use your surroundings. You can get a workout by using your own surroundings. And down there, there happened to be a lot of good-size rocks.

Groupon: You’re known as being a laid-back guy. Are there things that make you angry?

MM: Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Groupon: Anything in particular?

MM: I’m not a fan of, you know, there’s bull$hitters and there’s liars, right? The bull$hitters let you know that they’re bull$hitting. I love that. I’m a bull$hitter. My good friends [are, too]—I love a bull$hitter, for sure. Catching a good liar when they’re doing it all for themselves and they have absolutely no respect for what it’s going to do to you—oooh, no. I don’t play that. I also don’t like dorks. And what I mean by that—I don’t mean nerds. I dig nerds. I’d rather hang around the a$$holes and the nerds than the dorks. A dork is someone who’s trying to be whatever someone else wants them to be. That I don’t have much patience for.

<div id="thelincolnlawyer">The Lincoln Lawyer</div>

When Mick Haller takes a career-boosting case defending a wealthy Beverly Hills womanizer––played by Ryan Phillippe––against charges of attempted murder, he finds himself unexpectedly thrust into a battle for his own survival. The Lincoln Lawyer, directed by Brad Furman, co-stars Academy Award–winner Marisa Tomei, Academy Award–nominee William H. Macy, Josh Lucas, John Leguizamo, Emmy Award–winner Bryan Cranston, Trace Adkins and Michael Peña.





###Reviews In a review appearing in this week’s Rolling Stone, Peter Travers calls The Lincoln Lawyer “a slam-bang twister of a legal thriller”. The Lincoln Lawyer has also been reviewed by the Hollywood Reporter and more than 25,000 Facebookers are fans. Read more reviews as they come in on Rotten Tomatoes. > * It accomplishes its job in a smooth, cool manner with showy performances, the economy of TV-style camera set-ups and a touch of rap on its soundtrack. – Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter