Matthew McConaughey is an American actor known up until 2011 for playing roles in romantic comedies such as The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool’s Gold, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
Post-2011, McConaughey made his preference for serious dramatic roles known as he starred in The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Killer Joe, The Paperboy, Mud, Dallas Buyers Club, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Sea of Trees, and Free State of Jones.
In 2014, he also starred as “Rust Cohle” in the first season of HBO’s crime anthology series True Detective, for which he won a Critics’ Choice Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as starring in the critically acclaimed and Academy Award Winning blockbuster Interstellar.
Matthew McConaughey’s Net Worth 2017: $95 Million
Ever since his break-out part in Richard Linklater’s critically acclaimed film Dazed and Confused, McConaughey has been on this continuous rise past stardom and has made way to be recognized as one of this generation’s most iconic hollywood actors. So, it comes to no surprise to anyone that he has accrued the enormous $95 million net worth.
1991-2000
Around this time McConaughey began working in television commercials, including one for the Austin, Texas daily newspaper as the Austin American-Statesman which is credited as his first speaking role.
His line, “How else am I gonna keep up with my ‘Horns?” gave the local community a look at the young actor, before he was cast in Richard Linklater’s film Dazed and Confused.In 1992, he was cast as “Joe” in Trisha Yearwood’s video for her hit song “Walkaway Joe.”
After some smaller roles in Angels in the Outfield, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Boys on the Side, and the television series Unsolved Mysteries, McConaughey’s big break came as the lawyer “Jake Brigance” in the film A Time to Kill, which is based on the John Grisham novel of the same name.
2001-2011
It was in the early 2000’s that he was frequently cast in romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, both of which were successful at the box office. He also appeared as a firefighter in the low-budget film Tiptoes which also starred Kate Beckinsale, and Two for the Money as a protégé to Al Pacino’s gambling mogul.
McConaughey starred in the 2005 feature film Sahara, along with Steve Zahn and Penélope Cruz. That same year, McConaughey was named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” for 2005. In 2006, he co-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch and as Marshall head football coach Jack Lengyal in We Are Marshall, a monumental role for his early career. McConaughey also provided voice work for an ad campaign for the Peace Corps in late 2006.
2012-present
Critic Rachel Syme has gone so far as to call this era the “The McConaissance”, and I’d have to agree.
McConaughey’s decision to leave romantic comedies and pursue a more dramatic body of work:
McConaughey recognized that his “lifestyle, living on the beach, running with my shirt off, doing romantic comedies” had caused him to be typecast for certain roles, and he sought dramatic work with other themes. He said:
I got to feeling like, for a few years, I was doing something that I liked to do with romantic and action comedies. But believe me, I noticed there were other things that were not coming in. And if they were coming in, it was in an independent form with a much smaller paycheck, and nobody really wanting to get behind them … But I knew I could say no to the things I’d been doing. In saying no to those things, I knew work was going to dry up for awhile … Year and a half, still nothing. At two years, all of a sudden, in my opinion, I became a new good idea for some good directors.
In 2013, he played “Ron Woodroof” in Dallas Buyers Club. The role of a rodeo rider who discovers he has AIDS and struggles to get treatment required him to lose nearly 50 lbs. The film received high praise and earned McConaughey acting awards including the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama, and the coveted Academy Award for Best Actor.
He shared star billing with Woody Harrelson in HBO’s 2014 series True Detective. His role as “Rustin Cohle” won him the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. This iconic role also got him nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, which he lost to Bryan Cranston and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film.
McConaughey also played Cooper, a widowed father and astronaut, alongside Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Mackenzie Foy, and Casey Affleck in Christopher Nolan’s science fiction film Interstellar which was nominated for five Oscars in various categories.
McConaughey is set to star in the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, true-life gangster drama White Boy Rick, and Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum. In 2018 he will star opposite Diane Lane and Anne Hathaway in the erotic thriller Serenity.
