Matthew McConaughey: My Baby Will Be a Surfer Dude, Too

By Scott Huver and Beth Perry

09/11/2008 at 02:50 PM EDT

Like shirtless father, like son.

Matthew McConaughey says it's only a matter of time before his 2-month-old son Levi follows his father's flip-flopped footsteps as a surfer.

"He'll be getting salty soon," the actor, 38, said in Santa Monica on Wednesday while promoting his upcoming movie Surfer, Dude.

Already, McConaughey says, Levi is "outdoors as much as he is indoors," so hitting the waves is a natural progression. "He's going to be out in the middle of it too," he says.

In Surfer, Dude, McConaughey plays a soul-searching – and usually bare-chested – surfer in a comedy that pokes fun at his beach-boy image.

"When I'm lucky enough to be in a place where I don't have to wear a shirt and shoes, I don't," he says. "It's to pop the bubble and go 'Guess what? Now I'll do it the whole movie.' "

In fact, McConaughey says his much-photographed midsection came to prominence while working on this film.

"I started surfing to get ready – it's been a little less than two years," he says. "I wasn't a big surfer before."