Matthew McConaughey recalled how an early acting role in a 1992 episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” helped publicise a murder case that led to the capture of fugitive Edward Harold Bell. Speaking at the Filmland festival in Little Rock, Arkansas, the actor described the appearance while receiving Variety’s Legend & Groundbreaker Award and promoting his first film in five years, “The Rivals of Amziah King”.

McConaughey played murder victim Larry Dean Dickens in a reconstruction of a 1978 killing in Pasadena, Texas, in which Bell shot Dickens after he confronted him for exposing himself to children. Bell reportedly evaded authorities in Mexico and Central America for 14 years, before viewers recognised him from the episode and an FBI–Panamanian police operation arrested him in Panama City on 14 February 1993. McConaughey also praised Christopher Nolan, with whom he worked on “Interstellar”, describing the director’s sets as demanding and highly focused.