Matthew McConaughey

With Lone Star and A Time To Kill, Matthew McConaughey blew in from nowhere to become the Official Hunk of 1996.

In the two years that followed, Matthew's face was plastered across every magazine cover on the continent and a lot was written about him. The same adjectives crop up over and over again: sincere, honest, truthful. Richard Linklater, McConaughey's director on Dazed And Confused and The Newton Boys has simply said of him, "He knows who he is." However you describe it, the one phrase that sums his qualities up best is "star power."

Matthew stumbled into his big break when he spent the night drinking with some guy he met in a hotel bar in Austin, Texas. The guy happened to be the casting director for Richard Linklater's film Dazed And Confused, and McConaughey found himself cast as the film's resident stoner, Wooderson.

Landing in Hollywood, Matthew paid the rent by appearing in Angels In The Outfield and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (the film's producers wisely held back its release until McConaughey and co-star Renee Zelwegger became big stars). He played the beefcake in Boys On The Side. Then he beat out Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer and Woody Harrelson to nab the lead in John Grisham's A Time To Kill. Landing on the cover of Vanity Fair, he was being hailed as The Next Big Thing. Meanwhile, the film finished No. 1 at the box office.

Then came Bill Murray's Larger Than Life, Contact with Jodie Foster, Steven Spielberg's epic, Amistad and The Newton Boys. He took on a lead in Ron Howard's 1999 comedy EDtv and a starring role in the thriller about Americans taking over a stranded German submarine, U-571 (2000). He went on to play the romantic lead in the hit comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), co-starring Kate Hudson, then expanded his repertoire with the action flick Sahara (2005).

Matthew has continued to enjoy roles in popular big-screen blockbusters in a variety of different genres. For instance, he played a young coach to a troubled football team in We Are Marshall (2005), an eternal bachelor in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), a sleazy defense attorney in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), a lawyer again in Bernie (2012), a retired male stripper/club owner in Magic Mike (2012) and a contract killer in Killer Joe (2012).

However, it was his role as hustler Ron Woodroof, who struggles to find treatment when he's diagnosed with AIDs in Dallas Buyers Club (2013) that has earned Matthew the most acclaim he's received to date, including his first Golden Globe and first Academy Award.

More recently, he starred in Interstellar (2014), Free State of Jones (2016), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Sing (2016) and Gold (2016). Matthew starred alongside Idris Elba in the film adaptation of the Stephen King series The Dark Tower (2017) and played the father of the title character in the crime drama White Boy Rick (2018), which screened at the Telluride Film Festival and at the Toronto International Film Festival.

He has also starred in the indie films Serenity (2019) and The Beach Bum (2019).

In 2020, he was part of an ensemble cast that included Henry Golding, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant in Guy Ritchie's latest crime actioner, The Gentlemen (2020).

On July 7, 2008, Matthew and his partner, Camila Alves, became the parents of their first child, a boy named Levi Alves McConaughey. Their second child, a girl named Vida Alves McConaughey, was born January 3, 2010. The couple married on June 9, 2012.

Filmography:

White Boy Rick (2018)
The Dark Tower (2017)
Sing (2016)
Gold (2016)
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Free State of Jones (2016)
Interstellar (2014)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Killer Joe (2012)
The Paperboy (2012)
Mud (2012)
Magic Mike (2012)
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
Surfer, Dude (2008)
Fool's Gold (2008)
We Are Marshall (2006)
Failure to Launch (2006)
Two for the Money (2005)
Sahara (2005)
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Tiptoes (2003)
Reign of Fire (2002)
Frailty (2002)
13 Conversations About One Thing (2001)
The Wedding Planner (2001)
U-571 (2000)
EDtv (1999)
Making Sandwiches (1998)
The Newton Boys (1998)
The Rebel (1998)
Amistad (1997)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1997)
Contact (1997)
Scorpion Spring (1997)
A Time To Kill (1996)
Glory Daze (1996)
Larger Than Life (1996)
Lone Star (1996)
Boys On The Side (1995)
Judgement (1995)
Submission (1995)
Angels In The Outfield (1994)
Dazed And Confused (1993)
My Boyfriend's Back (1993)