When you look at the Best Actor race now it’s hard not to zero in on Matthew McConaughey, one of the hardest working actors in town (works hard, plays hard) and his upcoming physical transformation in Dallas Buyers Club. Just from the pictures of the actor, who also turned in a notable performance in Mud (which has made upwards of $20 mil so far), it’s hard to imagine him not getting awards attention. McConaughey is well liked in Hollywood and has been slowly building an impressive body of work after his early rise as the “next Paul Newman” to his jump to mainstream, then back to challenging himself with difficult roles in smaller films. He turned in three brilliant supporting performances last year and was completely overlooked. He has never earned a single Oscar nomination. This might finally be his year.
His main competition in a very crowded Oscar race already, appears to be–
Known/seen contenders (forces to be reckoned with):
Robert Redford, All is Lost
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Forest Whitaker, The Butler
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Not seen but expected to be formidable:
Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Benedict Cumberbatch, the Fifth Estate
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
Leonardo DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street
Josh Brolin, Oldboy
I have no idea what five actors will rise to the top, not at this moment, as it is as crowded as it always is this time of year. Even beyond those names above, there is also Ben Stiller for Walter Mitty, George Clooney for Monuments Men, Chris Hemsworth for Rush, Ethan Hawke for Before Midnight, etc.
The two actors who are doing the physical transformation would be Christian Bale for American Hustle and McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club.
The Los Angeles Times’ Steve Zeitchik writes up some background on the character he’s playing:
In summer 1992, an aspiring filmmaker named Craig Borten drove from Los Angeles to Dallas to see a man named Ron Woodroof. Borten was just a few years out of Syracuse University and didn’t know what kind of movies he wanted to make, or if he wanted to make them at all.
But he’d read about Woodroof, a fast-living — and, as it happened, deeply homophobic — straight electrician and rodeo habitue who had been diagnosed with AIDS in 1986. First out of self-preservation and then as a grudging crusade, Woodroof began smuggling unapproved drugs from Mexico and other countries, prolonging his life and the lives of thousands of others.
For nearly three days, an ailing Woodroof talked as Borten ran the tape recorder. The would-be filmmaker was astonished at how a crude and self-involved homophobe could become an unwitting hero in the early, terrifying days of the AIDS epidemic. “He was this enigmatic character: wearing a cowboy hat, incredibly raw about women, about drugs, about AIDS,” Borten would later recall. “I remember thinking ‘this is bigger than life itself.'”
Woodroof died a few months later in his early 40s. Shortly after that, Borten completed a script about him and his flouting of the medical establishment, set in the worlds of hospitals, the gay community and Texas rodeo. He called it “The Dallas Buyers Club,” after the pharmaceutical ring Woodroof ran.
Flash forward to a cold day last December in this scruffy suburb of New Orleans, where a surreal scene unfolded. At a usually straight, working-class watering hole, actor Matthew McConaughey — mustachioed and weighing barely 130 pounds — stood at a bar that had been tricked out in flamboyant fashion. In front of him was a large case packed with fake vials and pills. Actor-musician Jared Leto — in a skirt, stilettos and enough mascara to drown an elephant — was dancing nearby, surrounded by dozens of male extras similarly attired. Prop signs promised the “hottest men and coldest beer in Dallas.”