Matthew McConaughey used to be cast as eye candy, a guy who’d remove his shirt and let his chest do the talking. Now, he may be the most interesting actor working the screens.

In recent years, McConaughey has built an incredible body of work by selecting interesting roles of complex characters. From The Lincoln Lawyer, to Killer Joe, to Mud, to Dallas Buyers Club to HBO’s True Detective, he has portrayed disturbed characters with pasts that make living in the present a challenge and facing the future a chore.

He acts completely with face, eyes, body posture and voice–– a rich baritone stewed in bourbon, cigarettes, Texas heat and filtered through regrets, lost bets and tortured existence. He makes every line he speaks a self-contained story, and milks the silences as he contemplates and reveals glimpses of a wounded soul.

Matthew McConaughey has become the real deal, an actor worth watching no matter what role he’s assuming because we know he will plumb depths of the human condition to explore and expose what it means to live.

Matthew McConaughey may be the American Daniel Day Lewis.