Matthew McConaughey pours cold water on rumors he's running for Texas governor

Matthew McConaughey was surprised to learn that he was considering a run for Texas governor, he told Stephen Colbert on Wednesday's Late Show. "I actually just read that headline, actually, about an hour ago." The headline stemmed from an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt posted online earlier Wednesday. Hewitt asked McConaughey, 51, if he would run for governor of Texas or another political office, and the actor noted "that wouldn't be up to me. It would be up to the people more than it would me."

"I would say this," McConaughey told Hewitt. "Look, politics seems to be a broken business to me right now. And when politics redefines its purpose, I could be a hell of a lot more interested." He added that his political philosophy would go something like standing "behind personal values to rebind our social contracts with each other as Americans."

Colbert asked him directly: "Mr. McConaughey, will you run for governor of Texas? It's a simple answer: Yes or hell yes?" McConaughey laughed. "I have no plans to do that right now," he said, and Colbert called that "such a political answer."

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"Look, right now, no, I don't get politics," McConaughey said. "Politics seems to be a broken business. Politics needs to redefine its purpose." He will consider "whatever leadership role I can be most useful in, and I don't know that that's politics," McConaughey said. "Right now, I don't see it as politics." So what's with the headlines? "I've been asked that question, about if I was interested in running for governor, quite a bit lately, and I've always kind of given the same answer," he explained. "But evidently one of them came out as 'I would consider it' since I didn't say absolutely no." So... there's a chance? Peter Weber