10 Actors Who Dramatically Rebranded Themselves In The Last Decade

Has anyone in recent years found themselves to be the subject of more "actor renaissance" think pieces than Matthew "All Right, All Right, All Right" McConaughey? He's become the poster child for second chances in Hollywood and the Academy's new golden boy.

And to think, it was less than a decade ago that McConaughey was trudging through the muck of formulaic rom-coms, sporting the same doofy expression on every movie poster and rehashing the same meet-cute scenarios with a rotating cast of blonde-haired. doe-eyed actresses.

You could spend all day playing Spot the Differences with Failure to Launch and How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and you'd still come away with an empty scoreboard.

While conventional wisdom holds that the McConaissance started promptly after his widely-praised leading role in 2011's The Lincoln Lawyer, he got his first boost back into the public's consciousness three years earlier, as the dopey, TiVo-obsessed, Hollywood agent to Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder, a movie which also reinvigorated interest in Tom Cruise.

That's what made audiences fall in love with McConaughey again, and since then it's been one iconic performance after another. Bernie, Dallas Buyer's Club, The Wolf of Wall Street, Interstellar, and True Detective have all kept the former Wooderson on the map, but his best work may still be ahead of him.