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Matthew McConaughey
Facts | Biography | Credits

ATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY just might be the greatest salesman in Hollywood. While self-shilling is an art every actor strives to perfect--the thespian's very livelihood, after all, hinges on his ability to convince directors, the audience, and himself that he is the only fitting person for each project he pursues--McConaughey takes the art of self-promotion quite seriously. He rarely fails to mention Og Mandino's Greatest Salesman in the World in any interview he gives, using every opportunity to plug this book that has helped him sell himself so effortlessly. A faithful student of Mandino's school, he reads passages from the book day and night, studying the scriptures he believes will ultimately increase his actor's commission.
McConaughey's first "sale" was made in a hotel bar in Austin, Texas, in 1992. Then a film-production student at the University of Texas, he had taken his girlfriend out for drinks one night. His date was soon forgotten after McConaughey met another patron of the establishment, who just happened to be the casting director for Dazed and Confused. The two hit it off so well that they closed the bar down, and by the end of the night--ch-ching!--McConaughey was well on his way to capturing the role of an aging stoner, Wooderson, in Dazed. McConaughey's related experience up to that point consisted of acting in a few commercials and directing student films, but he nevertheless packed up after graduation in 1993, utterly confident in his ability to parlay his middling success into a bid for full-fledged film stardom.
Cutting a wide swath through the field of struggling actor-hopeful waiters, McConaughey was signed by the William Morris Agency within five days of his arrival in Los Angeles. On the strength of his inspired Dazed and Confused audition, he snagged a lead role in The Return of the Chainsaw Massacre, playing a villain in cahoots with the chief chainsaw-wielder, Leatherface. William Morris next secured for him the minor role of Drew Barrymore 's love interest in Boys on the Side, and it looked like McConaughey was doomed to a drawn-out rehearsal for major stardom in a series of small, thankless character assignments. He had already been passed over for lead roles in Assassins and The Quick and the Dead--not such a misfortune in hindsight--and turned in a small but memorable performance in John Sayles' Lone Star . But what happened next was a phenomenon rarely experienced in modern-day Hollywood.
Director Joel Schumacher was having a hell of a time casting the role of Jake Brigance in the film version of author John Grisham 's best-selling novel A Time To Kill . The problem was Grisham--he had nixed such bankable A-list talent as Brad Pitt , Woody Harrelson , and Val Kilmer . McConaughey, who had already been cast in Kiefer Sutherland's role as a racist agitator, suggested himself as a candidate for the lead after hearing of Schumacher's casting conundrum. After a brief screen test and Grisham's sign-off, McConaughey, a relative unknown, swiped the most envied part in Hollywood--thanks to the power of self-promotion. The publicity machine revved up to full throttle--McConaughey was hyped as the Next Big Thing by the trades, becoming the subject of such overweening, pre-success buildup, it was darn near embarrassing. 48 Hours, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and a host of other publications all dished up the same scoop on McConaughey: he loves that damn book; his dog, Miss Hud, is named after the Paul Newman movie; he's just a good ol' Texas boy; his father died after having sex with his mother; he is not dating Ashley Judd.
In its first weekend in release, A Time To Kill finished No. 1 at the box office, finally ending Independence Day's chokehold on the top spot. It looks like McConaughey can sell to the audience after all--even critics had to applaud the fact that he lived up to the ballyhoo. Studios have started clamoring for his services, but Warner Bros. intends to hold the golden boy to his contract. McConaughey will next play a small part in the Bill Murray comedy Larger Than Life--one of those roles he was only too happy to accept in the days before all the puffery upped his market value once and for all. His next lead comes opposite Jodie Foster in Contact, and he will also appear in a short called Making Sandwiches--the first property of the production company formed by his A Time To Kill co-star Sandra Bullock .











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