Matthew McConaughey has insisted that he is not "chasing" an Academy Award by starring in a series of acclaimed dramas, Digital Spy said.

McConaughey recently earned rave critical reviews for Mud, and will soon appear in the AIDS-themed drama Dallas Buyers Club and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

During an interview with USA Today, the actor insisted that his recent film choices have not been motivated by an attempt to win an Oscar.

"There's nothing out there that I am chasing. I want my work to translate," McConaughey said. "Last year was an incredibly creative year of work for me."

He then joked: "It was also the first year I lost money. How about that? Make sure you [write] that I'm saying that with a grin. I'm looking for great experiences."

McConaughey also discussed the prospect of drastically slimming down to play a medication-smuggling AIDS patient in Dallas Buyers Club.

“McConaughey's recent run of acclaimed, full-throttle turns in left-field indies (Mud, Killer Joe, Magic Mike) has finally culminated in Dallas Buyers Club in a role that Oscar voters will be powerless to keep off their shortlist. It feels at once crisply tailored to McConaughey's established gifts, and unlike anything we've seen him do before. His air of physical decrepitude is totally convincing, but it's the fear in his acting that counts – the film's most striking effect is watching this legendarily blasé star face up to mortality,” film critic Tim Robey said in a review published at The Telegraph.