Why top star, McConaughey, fell out with rom-coms

Matthew McConaughey starred with Jennifer Lopez in romantic comedy The Wedding Planner. Photo / Supplied

Matthew McConaughey has opened up about walking away from romantic comedies, after winning hearts all over the world starring in movies like The Wedding Planner, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, and Failure To Launch.

In the late 2000s, the actor was in a cycle of easy money-making thanks to the date-friendly flicks, but revealed to the Guardian that he quickly grew tired of the predictable storylines.

"You know the story," the 47-year-old told the publication. "Boy meets girl, we break up in the middle, boy chases her down at the end and meets her on a bridge or a moped."

It was seemingly the widely-panned 2009 film Ghosts Of Girlfriend's Past - which McConaughey starred in alongside Jennifer Garner - that finally tipped him over the edge.

"The ceiling and the basement of your emotions - how much pain can I feel, how happy can I be, how loud can I laugh? - that's designed to be a very thin wavelength, much closer together," he said.

But it was hard to walk away, because "that same script, same words, with a US$5 million ($6.8m) offer, is so much better than the one with the US$1 million offer".

To thoroughly rebrand, the father-of-three explained he had to clean his slate for a while and turn down every script that came in.

"So the anxiety was, well, how long is nothing going to come in? Having a family helps, but I feel like I always need to be accomplishing something, for my own happiness and significance. I gotta work.

"The anxiety was in how long will it be dry, how long will we get nothing? My agent did a good job saying no, no, no. Then the studios got the message and quit sending them. Then there was an impasse of nothing. And there was nothing for about eight months."

McConaughey's patience eventually paid off, and he began landing roles in low-budget films including 2011's Killer Joe and Magic Mike, alongside Channing Tatum, in 2012.

And then, of course, came his unforgettable Oscar-winning performance as Aids activist Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club in 2014.

McConaughey's latest movie Gold, about a businessman who in the early 1990s claimed to have struck gold in Indonesia and was briefly a billionaire, is in cinemas from next Thursday.