Matthew McConaughey is well known for his body transformations for roles. He lost a substantial amount of weight to play AIDS patient Ron Woodruff in 2013’s Dallas Buyer’s Club, for which he won the Oscar. McConaughey was down to just 135 pounds, and at 6′ tall that puts him at a BMI of 18.3, which is just barely underweight, so I guess it’s not as bad as I thought. Still, he looked emaciated. In his new interview with People Magazine, McConaughey says that he put on 90s pounds from his lowest weight of 135, to get up to 217 for his role in Gold, out later this year. (McConaughey plays a prospector and this is not to be confused with that sh*tty romcom he did with Kate Hudson, Fools Gold.) He surely didn’t go straight from 135 to 217, Gold filmed last fall so he was already a normal weight by the time he had to gain. I assume he went from about 185, his current weight, to 217, but still that’s 30 lbs. Here’s how he describes his weight gain.
During your 30s, with hits like The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, you became the romantic-comedy king.
How to Lose a Guy is still a gift that keeps on giving. [Residual checks] show up in the mailbox every month from How To Lose a Guy. I applaud that. I quite enjoyed doing those, and they were working, but that became the majority of what I was getting offered. After a while I just said, “Look, there’s only so much I can do in those.” Films I’ve been doing lately, I can go as deep into reality and humanity as I want. My basement is as low as I want to go. I can cry as hard, I can laugh as loud, I can love as hard, I can be as full of rage as deep as I want to go. I can also blow the ceiling off of it and show as much joy as I want.
You transformed again to play a prospector in Gold, coming out at the end of the year.
I got up to 217 lbs. I put on 90 lbs from 135 in Dallas Buyers Club. Trust me, 217 was fun. I kind of miss 217. My family misses 217. I was Captain Fun. It was pizza night any night. Milk shakes? Yes. Cheeseburgers for breakfast? Absolutely. Any indulgence was a good idea.
Where are you now?
One eighty-five. You get hung up on the decades. I got hung up at 210 for two weeks. Once you get to 208, fly down to 201. Hung up at 201 for two weeks, [and] once I got down to 198, fly down to 191 and then hung up for two weeks. Finally I got down to 185, [and] I’m like, “Great. Now I can eat.”
[From People Magazine, print edition]
At a weight of 217, McConaughey was borderline obese by the numbers. I don’t even remember seeing him look heavier! Kaiser covered that story at the time and he must have lost it so quickly. Photos are below, and you could definitely see the difference to how he usually looks although it looks like his shirt is padded in the pics with him with the jacket. In other photos of him just walking around on set (without the tie) his stomach isn’t so large. There were rumors about 10 years ago that McConaughey was going to put out a men’s lifestyle and fitness DVD, probably because we used to see him working out shirtless outside all the time. He’s one of those celebrities who seems to be an expert at gaining and losing weight at this point. He’s like Christian Bale in that way.
Oh and I included his quotes about romcoms because I really like how grateful he sounds about them. He’s not trashing the silly movies he starred in, he’s saying they had a time and place and that it was time for him to move on.
These photos are from October of 2015. The header photo above is from last month.
Photos credit: WENN, FameFlynet and Pacific Coast News
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