Matthew McConaughey Teases Political Ambitions After Meeting With Pope Leo XIV

Matthew McConaughey may have found a little divine inspiration for his next career chapter — and it could eventually lead him back toward politics.

The Oscar-winning actor’s recent meeting with Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City, Italy on August 5 appears to have left a lasting impression.

McConaughey, 56, revealed that his conversation with the pontiff got him thinking about the bigger role religion and shared values could play in American life

“Look, I’m going to use this word ‘religion,’ even though some people are going to tune out when they hear that word,” the Dallas Buyers Club star said in an interview with USA Today published on August 15. “Life is essentially a religious experience. There’s a lot of things we can learn about living life – how to treat others and how to treat ourselves – through religious texts and teachings. Even though I agree with the separation of church and state, the values of those should bleed down into the values of any political system.”

In a further comment where he referenced his own future, McConaughey added, “There’s still a constitution out there to be written that all religions could agree on. There’s so much commonality. It’s a constitution that I’m excited about seeing – I don’t know, maybe even adding to or working on. That would be a great thing to share.”

The Interstellar actor has already flirted with public office. In 2021, he seriously considered running for Texas governor before ultimately deciding against it.

McConaughey admitted he didn’t prepare a formal speech for his audience with the Pope, preferring to let the conversation unfold naturally.

“So I had some ideas,” he explained, adding that he wanted to discuss religion as a potential “moral compass”.

McConaughey also brought up AI in his new interview, questioning its impact on the future and sounding excited by its potential.

“What are the standards going to be with AI? There are already people looking to AI as their digital God,” he explained. “Whether we like what it looks like or not, it is going to represent a true image of mankind by the questions we ask of it and the results we want of it. We may not like what we see when we look in the mirror, but we could also love what we see. It could be a greater truth.”