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Jim Van Nest: I think the potential has always been there for McConaughey, but like Brett said, he has that leading man look that, I think, pigeon-holed him into certain roles. Someone that looks that good can't possibly be a good actor, right? Now that he's older and the days of being a rom-com leading man are behind him, he's getting meatier roles where he can showcase that he's always been more than just another pretty face.

Matthew McConaughy has been making films for years, and like any actor, he is going to have ups and downs in his career. He is on a bit of a hot streak right now, and that is great. Magic Mike is his most noteworthy recent work, in that it was made for only $7 million. That film made $167 million worldwide, so you can see the buzz and excitement around that sort of success. He got some great attention from the Lincoln Lawyer. He was impressive in Bernie.

However, we should not forget that one of his first major roles was Contact, and that was way back in 1997. There are people who aren't even science fiction fans who love that movie, and he was a major part of that film's success.

My point is this....people forget that actors have a wide range of roles and characters they take on during the course of their careers. Some of the films they make are smaller, receive less attention at the box office, but stand a better chance for critical attention. Guys like Gene Hackman and Nicholas Cage have actually won best actor nods before....and guys like Sylvester Stallone, Roy Schieder, Clint Eastwood, and Travolta have been nominated. When making films over the course of decades, these guys have highs and lows.

McConaughey is doing real well right now. Hopefully it continues for him.

Edwin Davies: I think that he had the self-awareness to realize that he was reaching the point in his career where people wouldn't want to see him in rom-coms anymore, both because a lot of the films he appeared in were terrible, and because actors will eventually reach a point where they are too old to be romantic leads, but also too old to effectively transition into doing other things. He was also fortunate in that he has been successful for long enough that he can say no to jobs that he doesn't think will be good, or say yes to ones that pay very little without having to worry.

Beginning with The Lincoln Lawyer, you can see a conscious effort on his part to take on roles that break from his traditional type - most notably Killer Joe, a deeply unpleasant film which takes his Southern charm to their very limit - and working with interesting directors (Richard Linklater, Steven Soderbergh, Lee Daniels, William Friedkin) who push him.

I think his reinvention is the result, ultimately, of a series of very shrewd choices on his part, but that none of those would be as effective if he wasn't a very good actor to begin with. It was easy to write him off when he was appearing in really bad films, but if you look at the early films of his career like Dazed and Confused and Lone Star, it's clear that he's a talented actor who fell into roles that paid well but didn't require much other than that he look good shirtless. Now he's appearing in films that require him to act while shirtless, which seems to be the perfect combination.

Kim Hollis: I'm actually at a loss to explain this, but then again I haven't seen any of McConaughey's recent renaissance performances, mainly because I don't like him much. He was good in Frailty, though, so I don't think he's ever been a "bad" actor. He just took some paycheck roles and now that he's aged out of it a bit, he can go back to more quality projects. He seems to be devoting himself to a bigger quantity of small, good films rather than a few crappy ones.

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