Once upon a time Matthew McConaughey was known for making light and fun romantic comedies. Then he transitioned into an era of more serious dramas where he frequently received strong reviews and eventually ended up with an Oscar. However, following the release of The Gentlemen in January of this year, we have yet to see a new Matthew McConaughey movie, and there isn't one on the horizon. It seems the actor is in no particular hurry to make any movies right now. While he's considered other projects, he sort of likes where his life is right now.
Matthew McConaughey has a brand new memoir, Greenlights, and in a recent interview about the book with GQ, the Dallas Buyers Club actor says that he's happy with things the way they are right now, and he's focused on his book and not really looking to go make a movie. According to McConaughey...
I'm not working that frequently right now in making movies. I've looked at a couple of scripts, but nothing that is moving me out of my chair to go, 'I'm going to quit doing this and go make a movie.' It's going to take something kinda special right now to make me feel like I want to leave this character that I'm playing right now in this piece of art that I'm creating.
Matthew McConaughey has made, on average, two movies a year for the last several years but even if 2020 had seen movies released as normal, we still wouldn't have seen a single film with McConaughey in it after The Gentlemen. The only future project on the actor's plate is the Dreamworks Animation sequel Sing 2, which, once upon a time, was set for a late 2020 release, but was pushed into 2021 before the pandemic insanity arrived.
Under the circumstances, Matthew McConaughey clearly picked the best possible time to take a break from acting. If he had said yes to those scripts that he says he looked at, he probably would be stuck in limbo and wouldn't actually be making those movies anyway. And the fact that all this is now happening probably means that it would take that much more from a script to get the actor's attention.
And with the success that Matthew McConaughey has had in his career, from box office hits to Oscar wins, he's in a position where he has a lot of freedom. He's almost certainly made enough money in the past that he doesn't need the work, and there are enough productions that would love to get McConaughey in their movie that there will always be options out there for him.
At some point, I'm sure Matthew McConaughey will get bored or get excited by a script and we'll see him again. And if it takes some time, you can always read his book.
