Matthew McConaughey and wife Camila Alves give a rare in-depth interview about their relationship as they reflect on moving from Malibu to Texas for more privacy and less ‘drama’

Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves opened up about their nearly two-decade romance and family life as they reflected on their move from Hollywood to Texas during a rare in-depth interview together.

While they grace the cover of Southern lifethe couple didn’t hold back as they reflected on their new reality since leaving Malibu with their sons Levi, 15, and Livingston, 10, and daughter Vida, 13, for more privacy in 2014.

‘We lived a happy life in Malibu. We had a beautiful home that we built together and put a lot of love and care into. We raised our children there. I grew all kinds of things in the garden. I let bees make honey,’ the mother of three thought.

After a family crisis that brought their family to Austin, Texas to help his mother and two brothers for several weeks, Alves noticed a shift in her husband’s energy that was lighter and happier.

She further recalled looking at him when they were stopped at a red light with a “peaceful yet confident, energetic look” on his face.

“You want to move here, don’t you?” she remembered asking him, to which he replied, “Yes.”

Her response was: ‘You son of a**ch.’

“As soon as I grinned, the light turned green and we drove away,” he added, noting that she quickly agreed.

McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde, Texas, and moved to Longview in 1980, admitted that the transition from Malibu to Texas was more difficult for his wife, as she has only lived in Brazil, New York and Los Angeles.

Still, she pointed out that her upbringing in Brazil wasn’t too different.

“We grew up hearing the words ‘Yes, Ma’am’ and ‘No, Sir’ or — as I should say — ‘Yes, Ma’am’ and ‘Yes Sir,'” she noted. “It takes me back to how I was raised.”

Additionally, she described some of their Texas traditions, including “going to church every Sunday” and how sports have become “a stronger tradition for the kids.”

‘Ritual came back, whether that was Sunday church, playing sports, eating dinner together as a family every night, or staying up afterwards telling stories in the kitchen, pouring drinks and nibbling on the island while we told them all in a different way than we told them before,” McConaughey interjected.

Some of the biggest draws for the Oscar winner as he returns to his home state are how “a mile here in Texas feels like a mile” and “an hour feels like 60 minutes.”

“Time slowed down,” McConaughey explained. ‘The clock was right, the body clock. And part of that is ritual; part of it is just the distance between places and the way people move. But it’s also the hospitality, the politeness, the common sense, the lack of drama.”

In addition to sitting down for the cover story, the lovebirds posed for a gorgeous photo shoot in their favorite Texas getaway, Marfa, while promoting their own brand of tequila, called Pantalones.

The images include them cozying up in various forms of embrace as they took a dip in the pool after sunset, lay together in a field and shared a dance on a dirt road during the golden hour.

During a video interview, the duo talked about the philosophies his mother, Kay McConaughey, instilled in him from a young age.

“Don’t watch someone do what you can do for yourself, go out and do it, go figure it out, go win, go lose,” he said. “I don’t think that’s specific to how I was raised, I think there’s something in the Southern ethos that’s synonymous with that.”

Talking about his mother, he said that, even at 91 years old, she was “clearly up against the odds… for many reasons.”

“One is her optimism, it’s not delusion, it’s survival. The answer is yes, that’s the word she lives by… She doesn’t worry, I’ve never seen anyone forgive herself faster than Ma Mac,” he said.

Alves said she learned to “turn the page” from her mother-in-law.

‘No grudges. You don’t go to bed with any kind of grudge against anyone else, or against yourself. That’s Ma Mac,” McConaughey concluded.

As for the “most requested” recipes in the McConaughey household, Camila named coleslaw without mayo, honey chicken and Brazilian chicken stroganoff as her family’s favorite requests.

After nearly a decade in Texas, Alves said she can confidently call Texas home.

She and McConaughey met in 2006 at the Hollywood nightclub Hyde, at the height of his rom-com fame while she was working as a model.

They married six years later in Austin, Texas during a three-day celebration at their home in the presence of their closest loved ones and A-list stars like Reese Witherspoon, Kenny Chesney and Woody Harrelson.

The 2024 South’s Best Awards are available now at SouthernLiving.com and the April issue hits newsstands March 22.