Actor Matthew McConaughey celebrates his 50th birthday on Monday. The U.S. actor began his career in the 1993 high school comedy “Dazed and Confused” as a man in his early 20s who still socialises with high school students.
Since then, he has appeared in more than 50 feature films, winning a best actor Oscar in 2014 for his portrayal of AIDS patient Ron Woodroof in “Dallas Buyers Club”.
The film features McConaughey as a homophobic, rodeo-loving Texan who contracts AIDS and becomes an unlikely saviour for gay patients and drug addicts desperate for treatment. McConaughey lost some 50 pounds (23 kg) to play the real-life crusader, who fought the government for access to AIDS medicines in the 1980s.
Once pigeonholed into playing goofy hotshot characters in action movies and romantic comedies such as “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”, “Failure to Launch” and “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”, McConaughey has turned towards grittier, more dramatic roles in recent years.
In 2011 he took on the lead role in the legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer”, and in 2014 he starred in space thriller “Interstellar”.
McConaughey showed off his dancing moves in 2012’s “Magic Mike” where he starred alongside actor Channing Tatum in the film about male stripping.
In a brief move to television, McConaughey appeared alongside actor Woody Harrelson in the first season of the crime drama series “True Detective”, which he also co-executive produced.
The 50-year-old actor, received a star on the Hollywood walk of fame back in 2014 where his “Interstellar” co-stars Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain joined in the celebration.
McConaughey is married to Brazilian-American model Camila Alves. The couple met in 2006 and wed in Texas, where they live with their three children.
