Matthew McConaughey compares meeting Pope Leo XIV to writing an Oscar speech

The actor, 56, and his wife Camila Alves met the pontiff earlier this month during a service at St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.The pair shook hands and chatted for a moment after the mass.Speaking on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, McConaughey said: “This is a man who sits in a seat to represent the moral compass of the world.“Different popes in the past had maybe more political power and stuff, but to meet him, I had some things I wanted to talk to him about.“If you prepare things to talk to the pope about, it’s kind of like preparing a speech for the Oscars.“You don’t know if you’re going to win, so if you win and you pull out a speech, it’s kind of arrogant, right? But I got to talk to him about some nice things.”Fallon asked the actor if he made the pope laugh, to which he said: “He made me laugh, which is one of the things I think is consistent about the holiest and most spiritual people in the world, they’ve all got a great sense of humour.”Matthew McConaughey said he talked to the pope ‘about some nice things” (Isabel Infates/PA)PA ArchiveMcConaughey was raised in a Baptist household and now attends a non-denominational Christian church.Elsewhere during the interview, McConaughey spoke about having a cinema named after him in Austin, Texas.The actor said it meant a lot to him because it was in Austin where he landed his big break in Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age film Dazed And Confused.Read MoreHe said: “It’s really cool that’s in Austin because that’s the place in 1992 where I walked into the right bar, met the right man, (casting director) Don Phillips, got a script called Dazed And Confused, read for Richard Linkletter.“Three lines turned into three weeks and I got my start of what I thought was maybe going to be a hobby that I did one summer, acting, that turned into a career of 34 years.”