Matthew wasn't planning on becoming an actor. Initially, he attended Western Kentucky University in the hopes of becoming a teacher. As he explained to Daily Actor during a November 2019 interview, he had already started his master's degree in teaching before he caught the acting bug. "I kind of just fell upon this play that I fell in love with at the time and just kind of changed gears entirely," he said. "It was called The Laramie Project. And so I read that play and that's when I was like, 'Oh, I like the idea of actually performing and acting for a career.'" Rather than finishing grad school, Matthew decided to enroll at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in LA.