Matthew McConaughey Compares Meeting the Pope to Winning an Oscar: ‘We Went Off Script’

Matthew McConaughey likened his encounter with Pope Leo XIV to preparing an Oscar acceptance speech, amusingly telling "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon, "We went off script." The Academy Award winner appeared on "The Tonight Show" to discuss his latest film, "The Rivals of Amziah King." Early in their conversation, McConaughey shared his experience meeting the Pope and compared the preparation for that meeting to preparing for an Oscar win.

"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? To go like, 'Well, I had a speech written,'" he remarked. "So you show up to meet the Pope and you have some things to say and we went off script anyway." McConaughey added that the Pope made him laugh, a trait he found consistent among the holiest and most spiritual people he's met.

He further shared a humorous anecdote about a scene in the film where he holds a hive of live bees on his arm. Although he managed to avoid getting stung during the actual filming, he revealed during rehearsals that he had accidentally discovered he was allergic to bee stings. The beekeeper had waited 20 minutes to see if McConaughey would swell up, revealing his allergy after he didn't swell after 20 minutes had passed.