STACK #121 Nov 2015

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 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 . Series.The eight-part series is an actors’ showcase and

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

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

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.

mesmerising turn in the HBO series True Detective (see right) in 2014.

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