Matthew McConaughey's greeting with Pope Leo XIV in Italy earlier this month has sparked political ambitions for the actor.
McConaughey spoke to USA Today about his conversation with the pope and shared whether his conversation with the religious figure swayed his stance on taking political office.
McConaughey describes himself as politically centrist, and he considered running for Texas governor in 2021. He has also advocated for bipartisan gun-safety measures following the 2022 Uvalde school shooting.
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"Look, I’m going to use this word ‘religion,’ even though some people are going to tune out when they hear that word," McConaughey told the outlet. "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."
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He 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."
Earlier in the interview, McConaughey told USA Today that he didn't prepare for the conversation, but knew some topics he wanted to discuss with the religious figure.
"That’s kind of like preparing a speech for winning an award that you don’t know you’re going to win yet. It’s a bit of a coup de grâce: Don’t do it because it’s not going to go as you expected," McConaughey said.
The actor continued, "So I had some ideas. I wanted to talk to him about religion in today’s world and where it sits with him as our moral compass. Where is religion today? Why has it declined? Why do we see a surge in youth running toward it? They’ve tried other things that they're seeing are vapid and don’t really work because they’re looking for more."
McConaughey told the outlet that young kids today are "looking for some structure; they’re trying to get more than what the world around them has given them."
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"It’s a good reason to pick some things out of religion, for sure," he added.
McConaughey also brought up artificial intelligence during the conversation, per USA Today.
"What are the standards going to be with AI?" McConaughey asked.
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"There are already people looking to AI as their digital God. 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," McConaughey continued.
"So there’s great upside and I’m excited about it," he added, clarifying his stance on AI. "At the same time, there’s a definite need for caution going forward because we’re going to have to be the users of that tool and not let it tool us, so to speak. So those are the subjects, and what we got to talk about will be between [the pope] and I."