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Biography

Matthew David McConaughey (born November 4, 1969 in Uvalde, Texas) is an American actor. After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s (including his breakout role in Dazed and Confused, director Richard Linklater's second feature film), he came to fame after starring in several successful films, including A Time to Kill and U-571. He is known for having played the leading man in several hit romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner (2001), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) and Failure to Launch (2006).

McConaughey, the youngest of three boys, was born in Uvalde, Texas on November 4th, 1969; he is of "Scotch-Irish" ancestry (the surname McConaughey means "son of Duncan" in Gaelic). McConaughey had what he describes as a conservative Christian upbringing. His late father, James Donald McConaughey, ran a Texaco gas station, worked as a truck driver, and was a former professional football player (for the Green Bay Packers, drafted in 1953). His mother, Mary Kathlene "Kay" McCabe, was a substitute schoolteacher. His parents divorced and re-married each other several times, in what McConaughey describes as a "loving, but unstable relationship".

McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980 and, after graduating from Longview High School in 1988, where he was voted the most handsome, Matthew lived briefly in Australia. He had relative academic success in high school, and went to college. He studied film direction at the University of Texas at Austin and was a member of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, graduating in 1993.

McConaughey got his start working in television commercials and was cast in his first role in the film Dazed and Confused (1993), after meeting casting director Don Phillips at a bar near the University of Texas at Austin. After appearing in some additional small parts in Angels in the Outfield, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Boys on the Side, and the television series Unsolved Mysteries, McConaughey's big break came as the lawyer "Jake Brigance" in the 1996 film A Time to Kill, based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. In 1997, McConaughey won an MTV Movie Award for best breakthrough performance for the role. He has also twice been nominated for a Blockbuster Entertainment Award. Christian Bale as Quinn and Matthew McConaughey as Van Zan in Reign of Fire (2002).


McConaughey gained renown and was cast in leading roles in many more movies: Contact, Amistad, The Newton Boys, Edtv, and U-571. By the early 2000s, he was frequently cast in romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, both of which were successful at the box office. During this time period, he appeared in the low-budget film, Tiptoes, as a firefighter opposite Kate Beckinsale, Two For The Money as a protege to Al Pacino's gambling mogul, and in Frailty, cast against type as a serial killer, opposite Bill Paxton.

McConaughey starred in the feature film, Sahara (budgeted at $130 million), along with Steve Zahn and Penélope Cruz. Prior to the release of the movie, he promoted it by repeating some trips he took in the late 1990s, including sailing down the Amazon River and trekking to Mali. In 2005, People magazine named him their "Sexiest Man Alive". In 2006, he co-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy, Failure to Launch, which was a success at the box office.


––Wikipedia
Filmography
Failure to Launch
Sahara
Two For the Money