McConaughey, Connelly go for a ride in L.A.

As part of the publicity onslaught for "The Lincoln Lawyer," the new movie from Michael Connelly's mystery of the same name, the author and lead actor Matthew McConaughey chat for a Times reporter while parked in an SUV on Connelly's old street above Laurel Canyon — he has lived in Florida for about a decade. McConaughey plays lawyer Mickey Haller, the lawyer whose office is a Lincoln Town Car. It's only the second of Connelly's books to be filmed; the last was the Clint Eastwood-directed 2002 release "Blood Work." The story says that Connelly is "poised to win a long legal battle with Paramount over rights to" his Harry Bosch character.

As McConaughey has his driver take him and Connelly to the author's former home, the actor pulling Coronas from a cooler next to his seat and offering bottles and limes to his ride mates, he says the experience of shooting across the city was an education. "We'd go to neighborhoods I'd never been to, that many people in L.A. have never seen, areas where you can feel a sense of desperation. Mothers and kids are walking in the park in the same square footage as the guys from the gang," he says.

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