PIC: Matthew McConaughey Looks More Gaunt Than Ever for New Movie Role

USMagazine, Wednesday, August 29, 2012, 3:30pm (PDT)

Matthew McConaughey's latest movie makeover is an especially extreme one.

The usually lanky Magic Mike star -- dressed down in jeans, a white t-shirt, and flip flops -- stepped out in NYC Tuesday looking even skinnier than usual.

Earlier this summer, McConaughey told Us Weekly his sudden slimdown is for his role in The Dallas Buyers Club, in which he stars as a man diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

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"I'm playing a guy who was sick and would have loved to have been healthier but wasn't. For me, it's more of a mental thing than a physical thing," he shared. "I'll get down to the weight I need to get to. I'm on my way, and it's what I need to do for the job."

The Lincoln Lawyer actor, who wed Camila Alves earlier this summer, isn't the only star going to crazy lengths for a movie role as of late.

Shia LaBeouf boasted to USA Today on Monday he dropped acid to better understand his character in The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.

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"There's a way to do an acid trip like Harold & Kumar, and then there's a way to be on acid," the outspoken former Disney star, 26, explained. "What I know of acting, Sean Penn actually strapped up to that [electric] chair in Dead Man Walking. Those are the guys that I look up to."

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: PIC: Matthew McConaughey Looks More Gaunt Than Ever for New Movie Role