He shriveled to a meager 135lbs for his starring role in the Dallas Buyers Club.But Matthew McConaughey looks far healthier as a fugitive convict in Jeff Nichols drama Mud, filmed before his shocking weight loss.
The 43-year-old actor peels off his shirt before his drastic slim-down and attempts to reunite with his lover, played by a sombre Reese Witherspoon, as he runs from the law.The film tells the story of two teenage boys (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) who stumble across McConaughey’s character. Refusing to reveal his identity, he goes only by Mud.The vagabond eventually wins their trust and the boys form a pact to help him evade the bounty hunters on his trail and to reunite him with a woman, Juniper, whose affection he dangerously craves.The two-and-a-half minute clip opens as the camera skims over a lake and a boat washes ashore.
‘There are things you can get away with in this world and there are things you can’t,’ McConaughey narrates, conjuring his native Texas drawl. The two boys, Ellis and Neckbone, run onto a deserted beach, where they find an abandoned boat perched in a tree after a flood – only to find someone is living inside.They stumble upon Mud – a strange man with nails embedded in his heels that leave a trail of crosses in the sand ‘to ward off evil spirits’. He reminisces about his girlfriend, Juniper, who has nightingales, ‘good luck birds’, tattooed on her hands.
Mud waits for her only the island, but she seems unsure about running away with him again.’I just can’t spend the rest of my life running away with him,’ she confesses, cutting to a scene of her laughing, beer in hand, with two men in a bar. Mud commissions the boys to help him get off the island as police close in, and their loyalty is tested.Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard and Ray McKinnon also feature in the film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last May to strong reviews.It will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday before hitting theatres with a limited release on April 26.Dallas Buyers Club, loosely based on the true-life tale of HIV patient Ron Woodroof, is scheduled for release later this year. – DailyMail
