2. Matthew McConaughey
This one's a bit of a cheat, considering how much of a turnaround last year was for Matthew McConaughey. But even as he heads towards what looks like an inevitable 2014 Oscar nom for The Dallas Buyer's Club, the Ronsealed Texan still carries a mock-worthy stereotype with him. It's largely because of his utterly confusing wilderness period, in which he shunned the auteurs looking to work with him (Linklater, Spielberg, Sayles among them) in favour of rom-com hell, forming a caricature of himself that all the arthouse projects in the world may never shake. He's the guy that chases chicks and mercilessly drawls awful dialogue. He's the guy that plays the bongos, for fun. He's the guy that has 'must be shirtless, where possible' in his contract. Even McConaughey's blistering performance in Killer Joe finds room for a scene in which he prowls around a trailer park fully starkers. But what a performance. Bonkers and full of menace, Killer Joe showed off a classic McConaughey unseen since Dazed and Confused. And just to prove it wasn't a fluke, he quickly followed Joe with Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike, wherein he portrayed an egotistical strip club proprietor and guitar-plucking entrepreneur. It was a self-deprecating display that had Supporting Actor Oscar buzz early on, but which never quite made it, presumably because voters were still angry that McConaughey had spent the past decade ruining date night at the movies. Expect McConaughey to get Oscar recognition, maybe even a win next year (biopic about terminal illness +
unhealthy physical transformation = awards gold), cementing him as a fine performer that once made some terrible decisions.
