A great relationship, a newborn son, and a successful career as an actor. In 2008, Matthew McConaughey was feeling pretty good about his life in California. Then an unexpected family health emergency took him back to his home state of Texas. It had him reconsidering one part of his life. Namely his career.

McConaughey was mostly known for being an actor in romantic comedies or roles where he got his shirt off at the beach. It paid well, but he was starting to find the whole experience boring. He needed a challenge and the acting roles he thought would challenge him weren’t coming his way.

For a year, McConaughey continued to reject offers to act in romantic comedies, but they kept coming. Then one lobbed in for $5 million, only two months work. He declined again and explains in his book Greenlights what happened next:

Then they offered $8 million. Nope. They then offered $10 million. No, thank you. Then $12.5 million. Not this time, but…thanks. Then $14.5 million. Hmmm…Let me reread it. And you know what? It was a better script. It was funnier, more dramatic, just an overall higher quality script than the first one I read with the $5 million offer. It was the same script, with the exact same words in it, but it was far superior to the previous ones. I declined the offer. If I couldn’t do what I wanted, I wasn’t going to do what I didn’t, no matter the price.

While McConaughey was on a self-imposed exile from the film business, fellow actor Nicolas Cage was looking to ramp his workup. Cage was hit with federal tax liens by the Internal Revenue Service after he had failed to pay over $6.2 million in taxes for 2007. Cage was also hit with further liens for unpaid taxes from 2002-2004. At one point, Cage was one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. Not long before the IRS started hunting him, he starred in the blockbuster National Treasure: Book of Secrets which grossed over $450 million worldwide.

Cage’s career over the next decade took a very different trajectory. The blockbusters started to fade away and they were replaced with many poorly reviewed and lower budget movies that seemed out of character for the Academy Award winner. CNBC hinted at the problem in 2017, “Cage is taking roles left and right to help pay off his debts.”

Meanwhile, it took twenty months of Matthew McConaughey saying no for things to change. In that time, he and his wife had another child, while he stayed out of the public eye and continued to live life. Just without doing his old job. Suddenly, at the twenty-month mark, he was rebranded. That time out of the limelight, turning down everything had worked its magic. Different movie roles started coming in. More dramatic roles he was interested in. Plenty of choices.

How did Matthew McConaughey have the luxury of putting up a redlight to everything he didn’t want to do, while Nicolas Cage ended up needing to greenlight everything that came his way?

Part of the answer might be Blaine Lourd.

As McConaughey formulated his plan to change his career, he went to his financial adviser to find out if it was possible. Could he and his family still live the life they were accustomed to? His financial adviser, Blaine Lourd, informed McConaughey he’d saved well, and he should do what he needed to do. While that’s the extent of what we know about their relationship, McConaughey goes so far as to thank Lourd at the end of his book “for the extra zeros”.

In contrast, Nicolas Cage filed a lawsuit against his business manager, alleging fraud and that he had “lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin.” Cage claimed the manager had failed to pay his taxes and put him in speculative and risky real estate which resulted in catastrophic losses meaning he had to “sell major assets and investments at a significant loss.”

Cage’s business manager countersued, suggesting Cage had been on a “spending spree that included two castles, 15 palatial homes, a flotilla of yachts and a squadron of Rolls Royces.” Cage apparently also bought many exotic items, including a dinosaur skull which was later found to be stolen from Mongolia.

Given both lawsuits were later dismissed we won’t know the true extent of any alleged mismanagement, nor Cage’s overspending.

What we do know is something about McConaughey’s adviser Blaine Lourd’s values. His job, as he now defines it, is to tell investors that the smartest thing they can do is nothing. He acts as a brake on, rather than an accelerator for, their emotions.

In 2017 I was fortunate to visit the Lourd Murray office in Los Angeles and meet with Blaine Lourd and his team. They use a similar investment strategy as us and our like-minded colleagues. That is: You can’t beat markets, you’re better off working with them based on well-understood principles. It’s one of the few times we’ve had an insight into the fact that rich and famous people can be successful with a very simple investment strategy.

And behaviourally we all face the same challenges. Lifestyle inflation. Who to trust with our money? Overestimating how long things can stay good for. The behavioural issues faced may be worse for movie stars. There’s much more free time, hangers-on, and exposure to opportunities and experiences that can separate them from their money. Finding a good adviser and being coached on how to focus on the basics maybe even more important.

The end result is being able to make choices. As McConaughey and Cage’s stories can attest. While both are still successful actors, their career options were materially affected by their finances. Good advice may be the difference between being able to say no and having to say yes.

• This article is prepared in association with Mancell Financial Group, Australia. The information provided, or any opinions expressed in this article, are of a general nature only and should not be construed or relied on as a recommendation to invest in a financial product or class of financial products. You should seek financial advice specific to your circumstances from a Financial Adviser before making any financial decisions. A disclosure statement can be obtained free of charge by calling 0800 878 961 or visit our website, www.stewartgroup.co.nz