It’s been 29 years since Trisha Yearwood‘s theatrical video for “Walkaway Joe,” starring then-unknown actor, Matthew McConaughey. Yearwood recently got to thank him for appearing in the video, while she was guest-hosting on The Ellen DeGeneres Show with her husband, Garth Brooks.

“I want to thank you because I’ve never had the chance to publicly thank you … for being in the video for ‘Walkaway Joe.’ It’s been almost 25, 30 years ago now!” Yearwood said (via People). “I always tell everybody that this was one of your first things that you did and that I basically gave you a career and now you’re way more famous than me. But do you have any memory of doing that? Because we were not in the same place. You were in Austin and I was in Nashville.”

McConaughey was in college at the time, when he got the call — er, buzz — to audition for the video.

“I remember I was wearing a pager at the time,” McConaughey recounted. “I remember I was in school at the University of Texas and anytime that pager would go off, and they’d say, ‘Can you get to San Antonio and audition for this beer commercial or this music video?’ I’d bam! Out of class. I’m out of here, trying it out. Well, I was about 0 for 18, and then I got the pager came on to come try out for this video, and I got that one.”

McConaughey still loves the “Walkaway Joe” video, even after all these years.

“I remember we spent a day — you know, they used to tell stories in the videos, much different than they do now,” he shared. “It’s a little story, the Walkaway Joe, they meet. It’s a great day. They go swimming. They hang out. They run hand in hand. They end up back at a ‘motel,’ not a hotel. Everything went well, and all of a sudden old Walkaway Joe just slips on out the door. He’s the wrong kind of guy.”

While she never got to thank him for appearing in the video, she did suggest they revisit the video again.

“I feel like we should do this video again maybe at some point,” she hinted.