LOS ANGELES — Matthew McConaughey has won the Academy Award for best actor for his performance as a desperate and determined AIDS patient in “Dallas Buyers Club.”
McConaughey lost some 40 pounds for the role, which capped a remarkable recent career transformation for the 44-year-old actor, once a regular in lightweight romantic comedies. It was his first Oscar nomination; he won the Golden Globe for best actor in a drama earlier this year.
In accepting the Oscar, McConaughey said he needs three things in his life to survive: God, family and someone to look up to as a hero.
When he was 15, the actor said, he decided that hero would be himself in 10 years. Ten years later, he pushed the deadline back another decade. Then another decade.
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After thanking God, his wife and children, his mother and his late father, he offered up something else long-time fans have been waiting to hear this Oscar season: “All right, all right, all right.”
The signature line, from the character McCounaughey played in his first film, “Dazed and Confused,” brought the house down.
The other nominees Sunday night were: Christian Bale, “American Hustle”; Bruce Dern, “Nebraska”; Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Wolf of Wall Street”; and Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave.”
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