Matthew McConaughey walked away from Hollywood in a bid to shed his image as the rom-com king.
The star stepped back from the movie industry after featuring in a slew of romantic comedies, including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool's Gold and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
He has since made a comeback with roles in acclaimed films such as Killer Joe and Mud, and most recently Oscar-nominated pictures The Wolf of Wall Street and Dallas Buyers Club, which earned him an Academy Award nomination.
McConaughey has now revealed he deliberately cut himself off from Hollywood in a bid to give himself a career makeover.
"I went to my wife and my agent and said, 'I'm going to stop for a bit,'" he told Variety.com.
"I just knew I was going to hold out for a while and things would dry out. I didn't know how long they would dry out for, and that was scary.
"I would get sent things and the paychecks were great, and I would say no. Then, they quit sending them ... So the message got through.
"All of a sudden, I became a good idea for people like (Killer Joe director) William Friedkin and (filmmaker) Steven Soderbergh - people who hadn't called before, who maybe wouldn't have seen me as a good idea three years before," McConaughey said.
