Thus far, it feels like this award season will be populated by small, intimate pictures, but just wait: Stephen Gaghan’s Gold arrives this Christmas, and it looks like a big and flashy present waiting to be unwrapped. A second trailer arrived today, giving us a longer look at the high-octane adventure drama that sends Matthew McConaughey’s down-on-his-luck underachiever deep into the jungles of Borneo, where he and Édgar RamÃrez discover the biggest gold find in history. This reversal of fortune makes McConaughey incredibly wealthy — and ensures that he can keep Bryce Dallas Howard in a succession of slinky gold dresses — but everybody wants a piece of the action, and once the FBI gets involved, McConaughey has to work overtime to protect his lavish new life from going up in smoke.
McConaughey gained over 40 pounds for the role and sports a succession of unflattering outfits and hairstyles, but the Oscar-winning actor looks to have gamely thrown himself into all that Gold has to offer: This is the most fun we’ve seen McConaughey have onscreen since his cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street, a film that Gold’s spirited mix of wealthy double-dealing and fed evasion can’t help but evoke comparisons to. “I feel pretty certain that people are gonna be blown away by McConaughey in this film — it’s a complete transformation,†Gaghan recently told Vulture, and based on his performance in this trailer, it’d be wise to earmark the 46-year-old as a potential Best Actor contender. We can, at the very least, add an irresistible new quote to McConaughey’s film repertoire: The actor, eyes wild with delight and fear, shrieking, “I’m touchin’ a tiger!†For that alone, thank Gold. See the new trailer above and watch the first one again below.