Oscar Nominee Matthew McConaughey to Visit CBS SUNDAY MORNING, 2/9

After starring in a string of romantic comedies, Academy Award nominee Matthew McConaughey wanted to alter his career path, he tells Lee Cowan in an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH CHARLES OSGOOD to be broadcast Feb. 9, 2014 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

During that stretch of his career when he was appearing in the romantic comedies, McConaughey was often characterized in the press as a sexy, shirtless guy living the good life. While McConaughey wasn't bothered by the image, he tells Cowan he reached a point where he needed a change.

"My life started to feel more exciting than my career," McConaughey tells Cowan. "I said, 'I'm going to have to stop doing what I've been doing.'"

What he was doing was relying on roles that were comfortable and similar.

"It was my fastball, sure," McConaughey adds. "And it was enjoyable. I remember saying, 'I want to recalibrate my career.' I felt like there's another evolution, another gear I can shift. There never was a coming-to-God moment where I was like, 'Oh my God, I don't like what I've been doing.' I just wanted to spice it up. I wanted to shake things up for myself. I wanted to go down and do some role that shook my floor, that made me uncomfortable."

For two years, he turned down the comfortable roles. Instead he waited, he says, for something different to come along. He recently played the part of a hit man in "Killer Joe," a roving attorney in "The Lincoln Lawyer," a cocaine-snorting stock broker in "The Wolf of Wall Street" and the lead in "The Dallas Buyers Club," where he played a homophobic cowboy who becomes an AIDS activist after he learns he's HIV positive. It was a part that required him to drop 47 pounds.

McConaughey also talks with Cowan about his career path, his days in college and the death of his father.

"I was lost at that point. I didn't understand," he says of losing his dad. "I didn't think my dad could die. No, he's the Abominable Snowman, you know? It's like he can't, that's my dad, man."

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.