I'm not going to hang my hat on the wisdom of this quote

There's a poster in the offices of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation with a picture of Matthew McConaughey giving a talk.  Similar posters of other stars adorn the walls, but unlike most of them, McConaughey's has a quote on the poster -- indicating, presumably, that he said something of great worth that bears repeating to all who walk through the building's walls.... The quote is "I'm looking for things to hang my hat on humanity."

I'm baffled.  The great meaning of this sentence eludes me.  In fact, the very basic grammatical meaning of this sentence eludes me.  What is being hung on what here?  What happens to the things he's looking for?  Do they get a hat hung on them?  Do they get hung on humanity themselves?  It seems there are three things here: the things he's looking for, his hat, and humanity.  And I don't understand what their relationship with each other is.

There are several potential morals of this story that jump out to me:

1. If you want to be an award-winning famous movie star, don't overthink your lines.  Just say them, even if they don't make any sense.

 

2. You should always research the origin of quotes before posting them (something no one on Facebook appears ever to do).  I can't find any mention of this particular quote on the internet, which certainly doesn't mean he didn't say it, but what I do find mention of on the internet are alternate versions of this quote by McConaughey that make some sense, including "I want to be able to hang my hat on the humanity of the character every day" and "I'm hanging my hat on reality and humanity, not morality."

 

3. Learn your lines verbatim!!!!  Also at the SAG-AFTRA offices, I listened to two older actors who have been working regularly for decades discuss how disappointing it is that young actors these days paraphrase everything and are allowed to get away with it, and how that changes the rhythm and music of the dialogue and isn't fair to the writers (I agree with this wholeheartedly).  So, assuming he has in fact said all three versions of this quote and tries to use it as a stock line in interviews, I'm going to assume this quote is hanging in the offices as a prime example of what happens when you try to get by with paraphrasing and it goes horribly wrong....  In fact, I'm going to leave you with this attempt by McConaughey at the same quote after he apparently ran it through a chopper, a dryer, a blender, a dicer, a car wash, and a junkyard compactor and the poor hat doesn't even get to hang on anything at all:  "What I was really looking for is some things where I could hang my hat and be the architect of my man, and it's based on humanity and reality."