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Matthew Mcconaughey
| Biography |
Matthew was raised in Longview, Texas, the son of a substitute teacher and a former member of the Green Bay Packers. He excelled in sports as a high school student and was voted "Most Handsome" by his senior class. After graduating, McConaughey spent some time working in Australia before returning to the United States to attend the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated in 1993 with a degree in film production. Having met producer and casting director Don Phillips, who introduced him to director Linklater, Matthew was cast in �Dazed and Confused� straight out of university.
After �Dazed and Confused�, he took on a number of supporting roles in films of varying quality, until being given his first leading role in Joel Schumacher's 1996 adaptation of John Grisham's �A Time to Kill�, apparently beating out Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer and Woody Harrelson to secure the role. Although the film met with mixed reviews, Matthew escaped the critical mauling relatively unscathed.
His appearance on the cover of the August 1996 Vanity Fair secured his status as �The Next Big Thing�, but he failed to capitalise upon this momentum, a fact which has characterised his career path. A string of small, largely unseen films followed before he landed a starring role as a property lawyer in �Amistad�, Steven Spielberg's 1997 slave epic. Robert Zemeckis� �Contact� followed, before he again collaborated with Linklater in 1998 on �The Newton Boys� alongside Ethan Hawke.
By the time he was cast in the lead role of Ron Howard's �EdTV�, he had receded somewhat from the public eye, with many critics noting that, despite his talent and good looks, he seemed to have trouble finding roles that would do him justice. The film itself was a commercial and critical success, correcting some of the downward turn his career path had taken. He hasn�t helped his public image any, via reports of eccentric private behaviour, including drugs allegations and arrest for naked bongo playing.
The taut World War II thriller �U-571� was his next major project, followed by the lightweight romantic comedy �The Wedding Planner� opposite Jennifer Lopez, which returned him to public prominence. Subsequent performances have met with more critical than commercial success, and he has been most recently seen co-starring alongside Kate Hudson in the romantic comedy �How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.�
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