The McConaissance

He began his acting career in 1991, appearing in television commercials. His first break was 1993’s ‘Dazed and Confused’ where he played a small role which won him a degree of immortality with lines like, “That’s what I like about high school girls: I keep getting older, they stay the same age.”

He took on a number of supporting roles in films of varying quality. The distinct impression in his small but pivotal role saw him become the leading man with “A Time to Kill”.  

Making the cover of Vanity Fair in 1996, he was seen as a rising star in Hollywood, and he had several dramatic projects that helped further establish his talents as an actor. In 1997, he appeared in ‘Contact’. That same year, he starred in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad.

In 2014, TIME included him in its list of “Most Influential People in the World.”

Childhood

Matthew David McConaughey was born on November 4, 1969. His parents married each other three times. He is of Scottish, Irish, English, German, and Swedish descent. 

He was an athlete at a young age, playing golf and tennis at Longview High School. His classmates named him the school’s “Most Handsome Student.” He completed his graduation from University of Texas at Austin in 1993.

After his graduation, he spent a year in Australia, washing dishes and shoveling chicken manure.

Career

In 1999, he became notorious for his offbeat off-screen behavior: Police discovered a naked McConaughey playing the bongos and found a small amount of marijuana. He was booked on drug charges and for resisting arrest. The drug charges were later dropped, but the actor paid a fine for violating a local noise ordinance.

Bouncing back, McConaughey emerged as a king of romantic comedies. He starred in ‘The Wedding Planner’ (2001) and then in ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ (2003).

He took a break in 2010 and returned to the screen with ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ and ‘Killer Joe’ in 2011. Both the movies garnered critical and commercial acclaim. He lost 47 pounds for his next movie “Dallas Buyers Club” for which he received best actor honors at both the 2014 Academy Awards and Golden Globes.

Personal Life

McConaughey met Brazilian model and television performer Camila Alves in 2006 and married her six years later. They have three children.  He is well known as someone who almost never wears deodorant or cologne and has three bedrooms in his house and sleeps in all of them in turn.

McConaughey started the ‘just keep livin foundation’, which is “dedicated to helping teenage kids lead active lives and make healthy choices to become great men and women”.

He also rescued various pets stranded after the flooding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, he rescued a cat from two youths in California; the youths had doused the cat in hairspray and were attempting to set it on fire.