Most praised the performances of McConaughey and Leto, who received the Academy Award for Best Actor and for Best Supporting Actor, respectively, at the 86th Academy Awards, making this the first film since "Mystic River" (2003), and only the fifth film ever, to win both awards. The film also won the award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and garnered nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. In July 1985, promiscuous Dallas electrician and rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is diagnosed with AIDS and given 30 days to live. As a heterosexual, he initially refuses to accept the diagnosis but remembers having unprotected sex with a woman who was an intravenous drug user a couple years prior. He is soon ostracized by family and friends who mistakenly assume he contracted AIDS from homosexual relations. He gets fired from his job, and is eventually evicted from his home. At the hospital, he is tended to by Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner), who tells him that they are testing a drug called zidovudine (AZT), an antiretroviral drug which is thought to prolong the life of AIDS patients—and is the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for testing on humans. Saks informs him that in the clinical trials, half the patients receive the drug and the other half a placebo, as this is the only way they can determine if the drug is working. Woodroof bribes a hospital worker to get him AZT. As soon as he begins taking it, he finds his health deteriorating (exacerbated by his cocaine use). When he returns to the hospital, he meets Rayon (Jared Leto), a drug addicted, HIV-positive trans woman, to whom he is initially hostile. As his health worsens, he drives to a makeshift Mexican hospital to get more AZT. The facility is run by a Dr. Vass, who has had his American medical license revoked because aspects of his work with AIDS patients had violated US regulations. Vass tells Woodroof that the AZT is "poisonous" and "kills every cell it comes into contact with". He instead prescribes a cocktail of drugs and nutritional supplements centered on ddC and the protein peptide T, which are not yet approved in the US. Three months later, Woodroof finds his health much improved. It occurs to him that he could make money by importing the drugs and selling them to other HIV-positive patients.