SOMETHING strange has happened to Matthew McConaughey: he stopped being a joke.
On Sunday, the 44-year-old whose most memorable asset used to be the washboard stomach he unveiled with dreary frequency in by-the-numbers rom-coms like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Failure to Launch, won a best actor Golden Globe. He did so by losing 40 pounds to play Ron Woodroof, a rodeo rider with Aids, in the drama Dallas Buyers Club.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
But if McConaughey picks up an Oscar on 2 March – and there's every chance he will – he'll have performed one of most remarkable re-inventions in Hollywood history. The Texas-born heartthrob, who was a fixture on 'worst actor' lists as recently as two years ago, is suddenly looking like the most credible man in Tinseltown.
Not convinced? Well, how about this: the premiere of McConaughey's dark, gritty HBO series True Detective was watched by 2.3 million viewers on Sunday night. It was the cable network's most successful premiere since Martin Scorsese's Boardwalk Empire in 2010.
That's quite a coup for an actor whose abilities were once so derided he was written off as a "torso". An actor the Complex website accuses of making "some of worst romantic comedies of the new millennium – films that our girlfriends force upon us during DVD nights".
To be fair, McConaughey didn't start his film career as a celluloid punch-line. His scene-stealing performance as a stoner in 1993's Dazed and Confused suggested he was capable of interesting work. But by 2001 – the year he starred in the moribund rom-com The Wedding Planner – his name was synonymous with the kind of guileless Hollywood 'himbos' who are effortlessly outsmarted by their sassy girlfriends.
The reinvention of Matthew McConaughey began in 2011 with The Lincoln Lawyer. A slice of LA noir starring the actor as defence lawyer Mick Haller, it was "an unexpected treat" built on a "career-best performance", wrote The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.
The Lincoln Lawyer was impressive, but barely prepared audiences for 2011's other McConaughey release, Killer Joe. As Joe Cooper, a police officer with a second career as a contract killer, he was the star attraction in a movie Total Film described as "the dirtiest black comedy you'll see in a long time".
The US ratings board slapped Killer Joe with an NC-17 for "graphic aberrant content". As a description it sums up the movie's most memorable scene that involves Cooper, a napkin and a fried chicken leg.
As his reviews went from scathing to celebratory, McConaughey kept his foot to the floor. The journalist he played in 2012's The Paperboy had a dangerous taste for sadomasochistic sex. He put his torso back to work in the male stripper drama Mad Mike, but his "drawling, leering" nightclub manager was more sinister than sexy.
Which brings us to Dallas Buyers Club and McConaughey's other 2013 movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. In the former, he's an emaciated hustler importing Aids drugs from Mexico; in the latter he's an immoral stockbroker who advises his protégés to get as much cash, cocaine and sex as possible. The Matthew McConaughey of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days - the wisecracking slacker with the abs and the good hair – appears dead and buried.
Variety's Peter Debruge writes that Dallas Buyers Club "permanently puts to rest" any doubts about McConaughey's abilities as an actor. The only remaining question is whether the Academy hands him Hollywood's ultimate accolade on 2 March.
-
Aug. 11 editorial cartoonsCartoons Monday’s political cartoons include solar power shunned by Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin's appetite for Ukraine, and another distraction from the Epstein files
-
Celebrating Cézanne in Aix-en-ProvenceThe Week Recommends The beautiful city is paying tribute to its most famous son with a series of cultural events
-
Crossword: August 11, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Has True Detective gone full horror?Talking Points The first season had supernatural undertones, but Night Country director Issa López has taken it to another level
-
'True Detective: Night Country' and the rise of Arctic NoirThe Week Recommends Why we love police procedurals set in the bleak and remote polar extremes
-
What’s on this weekend? From The Gentleman to GypsyThe Week Recommends Your guide to what’s worth seeing and reading this weekend
-
The Dark Tower film: What we know so farThe Week Recommends Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey star as Stephen King's saga comes to the big screen
-
True Detective 2 frustrates viewers with 'cheap trick'The Week Recommends Maybe Tomorrow is likely to be the 'make or break' episode for True Detective 2 viewers
-
True Detective: are viewers just waiting for the orgy scene?
The Week Recommends Episode five of pulp saga gets 'darker, weirder and deeper' – and that's no bad thing, say critics
-
Comic-Con 2014: five things we've learntIn Depth From Mad Max to Quentin Tarantino, the highlights from four days of San Diego's Comic-Con
-
Oscars: 12 Years A Slave best picture, but Gravity pulls in most gongsIn Depth The biggest winner of the night was host Ellen DeGeneres whose 'epic selfie' tweet went viral
