The other day I saw a denizen of our grand internet ask an apposite question: If it was 5 years ago and I told you that Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar for Best Actor and may win an Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama series in the same year, what would you have said? The smug-faced arse (as opposed to arse-faced smug, or smug-arsed face) of such cinematic travesties as Failure to Launch, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Fool's Gold is near-unrecognisable as the recent winner of an Academy Award for Dallas Buyers Club (and not just because he lost what we in the industry call a "Bale-tonne" of weight). It's as if all of a sudden he remembered how to act. And lucky us, because McConaughey 2.0's powerhouse performances have been the standout in films like Mud, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, he had a memorable cameo in Wolf of Wall Street (a movie not short of memorable performances), plus there's his turn as nihilistic homicide detective in HBO series True Detective. That's a level of career rehabilitation that the likes of The Priory can only dream of offering. For most of us, this sudden turn in McConaughey's choice of films and his performances in them seemed to come out of nowhere. The McConaissance, however - much like the renaissance - has been slowly taking place over a period of years, and we've only just begun to appreciate it. Here's a few of the early warning signs that the star of Sahara might have had more to him than pecs and a slappable smirk.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
