I know, another obscure choice for the list, but what's life without a few curveballs? With Dallas Buyers Club winning all the plaudits and True Detective's ratings soaring through the roof, 2014 has proved a productive year for Matthew McConaughey and he caps it off as the lead in Interstellar. He was confirmed in April 2013 alongside Anne Hathaway, with Christopher Nolan stating his performance in Jeff Nichols' Mud was influential in the decision. And while it would be easy to throw that on the list, it just seemed too easy a choice when talking about the 'McConaughaissance.' While his performance as the hobo-with-a-past was the strongest of his career so far, Killer Joe was the one that came out of left field. 2001-2009 was, quite simply, a bad time for McConaughey's career. The period saw him star in Sahara, Fool's Gold, Failure to Launch and Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past in fact the only notable appearance was his extended cameo in Tropic Thunder. It was a shame because he'd proved himself a good actor in the Nineties with movies like Dazed and Confused and Amistad. But then he went off the map, spent two years away from the big-screen and came back in 2011 with some serious acting chops. He returned with a trio of great performances. The Lincoln Lawyer was a better than most legal flick with McConaughey as a sleazy lawyer proving the foundation of the film's quality. He reunited with Richard Linklater to appear in the black comedy, Bernie, and then followed up with William Friedkin's, Killer Joe. While the Exorcist director refrained from green puke this time round, he did include Kentucky fried oral sex, and if you haven't seen the film, go watch it and you'll see what I mean. McConaughey is electric as Killer Joe Cooper, a dirty cop that specialises in disposing of undesirables for cash, but when the most dysfunctional, trailer-park family can't pay him, he takes the daughter as leverage. It may not be the best film of his resurgence, but it's the boldest by far. Take one look at the never-ending list of rom-coms and compare it to Killer Joe you wouldn't think this was the same actor. His performance shows him as a risk-taker, a scene-stealer, a cold-blooded psychopath and an actor entering into the strongest purple patch since Ben Affleck sat in a director's chair. Three years later, he's nailed everything he's been in (even Eastbound and Down), resulting in the reward of a coveted lead role in a Christopher Nolan space adventure.
