Matthew McConaughey sidesteps question on running for political office

Actor Matthew McConaughey sidestepped a question Sunday on whether he would run for political office in the future.

“It’s more of a larger question for me of, is politics the category where I can be the most useful,” McConaughey told ABC’s “This Week.”

McConaughey launched the Greenlights Grant Initiative last month alongside his wife that he says will help schools apply for safety grants that were included as part of legislation passed in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Since the school shooting in Uvalde, McConaughey has emerged as an advocate for “real change” on gun violence.

“There’s a great question that I’m still answering and as of right now to be a private citizen, with my wife and come up with an idea like the Greenlights Grant Initiative to work with the government publicly to help them — not doing the job for them — helping them pull off what they set out to do in the first place,” he said. “There is argument that that’s more useful what I’m doing right now in a small way.”

“I mean, I’d have to be convinced that that’s the category that I’d be could be quite useful in,” McConaughey added. “And it’s something that I think about all the time.”

President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June 2022 in the wake of the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, N.Y. According to McConaughey, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told him that just 12 out of 119 schools in his district had applied for the $1 billion in school safety grants created by the bill.

Updated 7/31 11:19 a.m.