A decade ago, Matthew McConaughey was yesterday’s man. He’d had a good run. The Texas-born actor had spent the last 15 years as one of Hollywood’s top leading men, first fronting blockbusters like Amistad and Contact, then moving onto what seemed his natural home: romantic comedies. The Wedding Planner, Failure to Launch, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days – for years he was the charming yet slightly disreputable man-child who was just rebellious enough to balance out the decent, hardworking women his characters were up against.
But by the mid-00s romantic comedies were focusing more on the comedy side of things. McConaughey could be funny, but he was no Seth Rogan; suddenly rom-coms were about schlubby losers paired with out-of-their-league women, not McConaughey’s confident charmers. He wasn’t a gun-toting action lead, and when he tried to shift to adventure it never quite clicked. 2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer was a return to form – or it would have been, if there had still been an audience for 1990s-style legal thrillers.
It was his other film of 2011 that showed his way forward. In the micro-budget adaptation of the Tracey Letts play Killer Joe, he played almost violently against type as the title character, a terrifying black hole of menace.
Joe is a Dallas cop with a side business as a hit man, drawn into a drug-addled family’s dim-witted murder scheme even as he ruthlessly manipulates and exploits the trailer trash around him. You’ll never look at a chicken drumstick the same way; McConaughey pulled in a string of awards, even as the film itself was all but banned in its uncut form in the USA.
Matthew McConaughey in 'Killer Joe' Source: Distributor
Killer Joe is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
With 2012’s Mud, it was clear he wasn’t going back to rom-coms any time soon. A coming-of-age drama set on the Mississippi River, it’s the story of two teens (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) who stumble across a man named Mud (McConaughey) hiding out on a small island.
As a man, Mud couldn’t be more different than Killer Joe – or the characters in the other films to come – but McConaughey’s performance made clear he would no longer be coasting on his natural charisma. Moving forward, his best roles would be ones where he interrogated what having his kind of charm actually meant for a person, and how those characters would choose to use their power in the world.
Balancing the teen’s tentative steps into the complicated world of manhood with Mud’s morally opaque character – while he says he’s back in town for his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), he’s clearly on the run from the law – Mud showed up-and-coming writer-director Jeff Nichols to be a master of small-town Americana. More importantly, it cemented McConaughey’s growing rep as an actor with more going on than a pretty face and charming drawl.
McConaughey in 'Mud'. Source: SBS Movies
By 2013 his career revival had its own nickname: “The McConaissance”. McConaughey was a pop culture sensation, a comeback kid everyone wanted to see succeed. The only thing he didn’t have was a whole lot of awards. Enter 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club , the real-life story of 80s AIDS patient Ron Woodroof (McConaughey), an electrician and rodeo cowboy who smuggled unapproved medicinal drugs across the Mexican border into Texas to supply a private “buyers club” and circumvent opposition from the Food and Drug Administration.
Directed by Canadian Jean-Marc Vallée (who would go on to direct TV series Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, and who passed away on Christmas Day) and featuring Jared Leto as (fictional) trans woman and AIDS patient Rayon, it was a box office hit and an awards season sensation. McConaughey’s career-best performance as a hustler who gradually became part of a community won him Best Actor awards at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards for his performance; Leto picked up all three Best Supporting Actor awards.
See Dallas Buyer's Club at SBS On Demand from 22 January.
McConaughey has since moved between blockbusters (Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar), voicing animated features (he’s currently in cinemas as the voice of showbiz producer and koala Buster Moon in Sing 2) and publishing a memoir, Greenlights. One of his rare recent forays into more personal storytelling is 2016’s Free State of Jones; it’s also one of the highlights of his recent career.
A Confederate soldier in the American Civil War, Newton Knight (McConaughey) deserted and returned to Mississippi, where he led an alliance of deserters and escaped slaves who created their own rebel state that held out against the Confederacy until the war’s end. Not so much a story about a white saviour as an attempt to figure out what a post-racial society might actually involve, McConaughey once again puts a spin on his natural charm as a man who decides to try and lead the South away from the sins of slavery.
McConaughey in 'Free State of Jones'. Source: IM Global
It’s a performance he’s yet to top; it’s been one hell of a comeback.
Watch 'Mud'
Sunday 16 April, 10:50pm on SBS World Movies / Streaming after at SBS On Demand
M, AD
USA, 2012
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Sarah Paulson
Source: SBS Movies
