Matthew McConaughey Takes Meatier Roles

Matthew McConaughey is having a big year. Not only did McConaughey marry his longtime love, Brazilian model Camila Alves, last month, but the couple recently announced that they are expecting their third child together. And on top of all the family news, McConaughey is starring in no less than five films this year — Bernie, Magic Mike, Mud, The Paperboy and Killer Joe — all of which add up to a daring new direction for the Texas-born actor, hitherto best known for roles in light, romantic comedies.

In Lee Daniels’ Cannes hit The Paperboy, for example, McConaughey plays "a closeted gay reporter with a taste for rough sex and a raging death wish," according to the New York Times. And for his performance in Mud, another Cannes selection, McConaughey is basking — along with director Jeff Nichols and co-star Reese Witherspoon — in the glow of positive reviews.

This newfound praise from an audience typically hostile to the pre-2012 McConaughey vehicle (such as Failure to Launch, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and The Wedding Planner), arrives in the midst of two other well-reviewed performances as a swaggering, small-town detective in Bernie and a male stripper in Magic Mike. (Read our review of Magic Mike here).

Next up, McConaughey will play a sadistic, Stetson-wearing sociopath in the title role of William Friedkin’s Killer Joe, due in theaters July 27.