The actor was known mainly for his mainstream box office successes before he ventured into more dramatic territory with films like “Killer Joe,” “Magic Mike,” “Mud” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” which won him last year’s Best Actor Oscar.
Like McConaughey, several mainstream actors and actresses have taken detours from their typical roles this season, and early festivals and reception have already cemented them in the midst of the awards race.
In the actor categories, four formidable four men have already been the center of awards conversation, all of whom are taking on different material. Steve Carell is in the midst of the race for his role as John DuPont, a schizophrenic millionaire who murdered an Olympic wrestler on his estate in the 1990s in “Foxcatcher.” The trailers show Carell in a completely unsettling and genuinely terrifying character, drastically different from the funny man he usually plays.
Right beside Carell are Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock”), who have both earned rave reviews for their turns as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” and British mathematician Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game,” respectively.
Busting out with stellar reviews and giving a performance that apparently seals his Hollywood comeback was Michael Keaton, who plays a washed-up actor – known mainly for his role as a superhero – trying to restart his career and pick up the pieces of his personal life while attempting to put on a Broadway play in “Birdman.” The movie will hit screens everywhere in early October after appearing at the Venice, Telluride and New York film festivals. From early trailers, the film looks like a wild experience. On the outside looking in, Channing Tatum (a co-lead in “Foxcatcher”) and Miles Teller (“Whiplash”) are also very much in play for their first nods, as is Teller’s co-star J.K. Simmons in supporting.
In the actress categories, however, more intriguing choices have surfaced. In Best Actress, rising star Shailene Woodley is still in contention for “The Fault in Our Stars,” and British starlet Rosamund Pike (“Jack Reacher,” “The World’s End”) has the prime role in “Gone Girl,” whose trailers have been cryptic, mysterious and tantalizing. Toronto produced Jennifer Aniston as a dark-horse contender for her dramatic turn in “Cake,” where she plays a woman tormented by chronic pain who investigates the suicide of a member of her support group (Anna Kendrick, in contention for her second nod with a supporting role in “Into the Woods”). Other contenders include Scarlett Johansson in “Under the Skin” and Kirsten Dunst for “The Two Faces of January.”
In supporting, “Easy A” star Emma Stone has received plenty of buzz for her role as Keaton’s daughter whom he hires as his personal assistant after her release from rehab in “Birdman.” Expect Stone to be named in the Supporting Actress lineup when the nominations are announced, alongside four other women that may include first-time nominees Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”), Emily Blunt (“Into the Woods”), Rene Russo (“Nightcrawler”) and Kristen Stewart (“Clouds of Sils Maria”).
