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EXTRAS
TRUE DETECTIVE
McConaughey reunited with his
good buddyWoody Harrelson
(the “Wood-man”) in HBO’s
knockout crime series, for which
he received an Emmy nomination
for Outstanding Actor in a Drama
Series.The eight-part series
is an actors’ showcase and
McConaughey is mesmerising as
former narc Rust Cohle, whose
mind has been fried from too
many drugs while undercover,
and is prone to philosophical and
existential ramblings during a 17-
year search for a ritualistic serial
killer in the Deep South. Like many
of his edgier characters on film,
the actor was drawn to Cohle’s
obsessive nature. “Characters
that live on the fringe — they’re
all a little bit on the outskirts
of civilisation. I find a certain
ownership and freedom in that,”
he told
Rolling Stone
.
INTERSTELLAR
Following
Dallas Buyers Club
and
True Detective
, McConaughey is
riding a career high that will blast off
into the stratosphere – literally – in the
new sci-fi adventure from
The Dark
Knight
director Christopher Nolan.The
actor plays a widowed engineer who
embarks on a dangerous interstellar
voyage through a wormhole in
order to save a dying Earth.The
movie continues McConaughey’s
association with high profile directors
after resetting his career trajectory
in 2011.
Interstellar
opens in cinemas
everywhere on 6 November 2014.
McConaughey’s rom-com residence was still a
couple of films away, however. Prior to the first of two
collaborations with Kate Hudson, he played another
attorney in the intersecting ensemble drama
Thirteen
Conversations About OneThing
(2001); the son of a
serial killer in the underrated Southern Gothic
Frailty
(2001); and a bald, cigar-chomping dragonslayer in the
bonkers post-apocalypse adventure
Reign of Fire
(2002).
McConaughey’s first date with Kate took place in
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(2003). As a ladies man
who wagers he can make a woman fall in love with him
in just ten days, McConaughey meets his match in
Hudson’s women’s magazine writer, who’s penning the
titular converse article.
One of the most bizarre entries on the McConaughey
CV is surely
Tiptoes
(2003), “a rom-com with dwarves”
in which he hides the fact he’s from a family of little
people from pregnant wife Kate Beckinsale. A film as
insensitive and stupid as it sounds.
Is that Indiana Jones, or Allan Quatermain? No, it’s
Matthew McConaughey as explorer and rogue Dirk Pitt
in
Sahara
(2005), a big budget adaptation of the Clive
Cussler best-seller. The actor hit the promotional trail in
his Airstream trailer, which sported posters for the film
on either side for maximum exposure as he drove across
America. “Nothing beats the feeling of taking off on my
own and driving to wherever the road takes me,” he has
said – making him the perfect man for the job.
Two for the Money
(2005) saw him rubbing shoulders
with Al Pacino in a sports betting drama that’s actually
much better than the reviews and box office would
suggest. He followed this with another sports-themed
film,
We Are Marshall
(2005), playing a coach who
must rebuild West Virginia’s Marshall University
football team following the (real-life) air disaster that
claimed the lives of its players and staff.
Failure to Launch
(2006) was the kind of rom-com
stinker whose failure to entertain made the moviegoing
public suddenly wish McConaughey would put his
shirt back on and make some good movies again. As
a thirtysomething slacker still living at home with his
folks, he’s the ideal project for Sarah Jessica Parker,
who specialises in convincing adult dudes to move out
of home. Do they eventually fall in love and move in
together? Does a one legged duck swim in circles?
McConaughey sank further into the rom-com mire
– sans shirt of course – in the diabolical
Fool’s Gold
(2008). Reuniting with Kate Hudson, the pair played
a divorced couple hoping to reconcile while diving for
sunken treasure in the Bahamas (in reality Queensland).
The critics, circling like sharks, were quick to tear the film
apart. On his romantic comedy phase, McConaughey has
noted, “Rom-coms are hard in a lot of ways: they’re built
to be buoyant. It’s easy to demean them.” Indeed.
Abruptly shifting genres, he replaced Owen Wilson
in the role of Ben Stiller’s agent Rick Peck in
Tropic
Thunder
(2008), before hitting the nadir of his career
with
Surfer, Dude
(2008), a film as vacuous as his
character – a “soul surfer” who spends his days
catching waves, ogling beach babes and smoking
weed. Nice work if you can get it!
The door finally closed on the McConaughey
rom-com cycle with the rather appropriately titled
Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past
(2009). The actor had
finally realised he’d become typecast as a shirtless
ladies man and rom-com regular. “So I consciously
recalibrated my relationship with my career,” he told
Mike Fleming Jr. at deadline.com in June 2014.
“I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do,
because I wasn’t getting those things. But I knew
I could say no to the things I’d been doing.”
The ‘10s
“...in my opinion, I became a new good
idea for some good directors.”
With shirt firmly buttoned up, McConaughey’s
resurrection as a serious actor saw him diving into
a number of edgy roles in indie films, and working
with respected filmmakers.
Having hit the big time with
A Time to
Kill
in ‘96, what better way to kickstart his revival
than with another cracking legal thriller based
on a best-seller.
The Lincoln Lawyer
(2011),
based on Michael Connelly’s novel, featured the
McConaughey of old as a criminal defence attorney
whose office is his car, a guy he describes as
“kind of a bottom-feeder” but more street-smart
than his character in
A Time to Kill
.
Playing a district attorney in Richard Linklater’s
Bernie
(2011) marked the beginning of his indie
phase, which he followed with several bravura
performances – as a scumbag cop cum hitman
in William Friedkin’s
Killer Joe
(2011); a seedy
reporter in Lee Daniel’s
The Paperboy
(2012);
and a fugitive living in a boat stuck in a tree in
Jeff Nichols’
Mud
(2012).
He lost his shirt again (and pants) in Steven
Soderbergh’s
Magic Mike
(2012), but this time
the plot called for it, with McConaughey stealing
the film as the leader of a male stripper troupe.
“I knew that I was just going to be able to fly,”
he explained. “It was really fun to play someone
so committed, in many ways.”
McConaughey’s career recalibration was
ultimately rewarded in 2013 with a shower of
accolades and awards, including the Oscar for
Best Actor for his performance as AIDS-afflicted
cowboy turned anti-viral drug businessman Ron
Woodroof in the true-life drama
Dallas Buyers
Club
. That same year, he made a memorable
cameo in Martin Scorsese’s
TheWolf ofWall
Street
, and would receive further kudos for his
mesmerising turn in the HBO series
True Detective
(see right) in 2014.