Matthew McConaughey traded his usual leading-man polish for a mandolin and a barn-door backdrop on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" this week, joining Fallon and Virginia folk trio The Last Bison for a bluegrass rendition of Ella Langley's chart-topping "Choosin' Texas."
The Aug. 12 performance grew out of the show's "Audience Suggestion Box" segment, where a viewer asked Fallon to combine Langley's hit with McConaughey's new film, "The Rivals of Amziah King," in which the actor plays a beekeeper who leads his own bluegrass band. Fallon obliged, revealing McConaughey on mandolin alongside The Last Bison while Fallon himself grabbed a washboard.
Langley's song has spent 17 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 - the longest run by a solo female artist in the chart's history, surpassing Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" and Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together." Langley watched the cover and posted a simple two-word reaction on Instagram.
The performance came just a week after McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves, met Pope Leo XIV during his general audience at St. Peter's Basilica. The Texas native, who has spoken publicly in the past about returning to his Christian faith after a season of doubt, also stopped by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, where he discussed spirituality and the future of artificial intelligence with theologian Fr. Paolo Benanti. On Fallon's show, McConaughey joked that preparing to meet the pope felt a lot like writing an Oscars speech.
"The Rivals of Amziah King" opens in theaters Aug. 14.
