During an appearance on “Today,” actor Matthew McConaughey said America needs more faith. “I was starting to look down my nose and get a little cynical. I was starting to go, ‘Maybe this is just how it is,’” he said. “I said, ‘No, I’m not ready to wave the white flag and let doubt win in me.’ I noticed that a lot of people were saying the same thing. We need belief. Whether that’s in God, whether that’s in your kids or your future, your better self, whatever that is, we need more of it and we need to double down on it.”

McConaughey has been open the last few years about his ever-evolving faith. In 2025, he spoke to Relevant about how his faith has shifted over the years. “I’m a believer. I believe in God,” he said. “I also, at times in my life, took advantage of the idea of, ‘Well, it’s all fate. What’s going to happen is going to happen. It’s all been written.’ I had a time where I had a couple of very agnostic years. It wasn’t as much about disbelieving as it was more about telling myself, ‘Hey, quit chalking things up to fate. You have your hands on the wheel, you’re responsible for your decisions,’” he added. “That’s why you’ve got free will — you make the choice for yourself. Your hands are on the wheel.”

McConaughey went on to express the importance of prayer in his life in connecting him to God. He recalled an experience confessing to a monk named Brother Christian. “I confessed to him for four hours,” McConaughey says. “I’m feeling like I’m at the bottom of the earth. I’m bawling and snot’s coming out of my nose. What does he say? The only word he says to me after four hours of my confessions. He looks me in the eyes and he goes: ‘Me too,’” he said of the profound experience. “He let me know that I was not the center of the universe. He let me know it was a human condition, what I was going through. God’s not looking for us to come there perfectly. He’s not looking for us to come there all cleaned up and a halo on it. He wants to open the door when we’re groveling.”

McConaughey’s often pluralistic talk makes his far from the ideal Christian icon, but his candid, open approach to faith has made him particularly endearing to the public. “I can tell you from personal experience that at least 90 percent of people I know in the public eye are wildly unimpressive behind closed doors. It’s all an act. Truly some of the dumbest people on the planet, and I will never apologize for having that opinion,” wrote David Hookstead for Outkick. “People like McConaughey and Chris Pratt are the exception – not the rule. How many other actors would go on national TV and tell people that believing in God is a benefit in life?”