Matthew McConaughey and wife Camila opened up about the moment they decided to uproot their life from California to Texas.
While speaking to Southern Living for the magazine's April cover story, the couple shared how their decision came about.
Camila said they "were living a happy life in Malibu" prior to the move.
"We had a beautiful house that we'd built together and put a lot of love and care into," she said. "We were raising our kids there. I was growing everything in the yard. I had bees making honey."
However, Camila said she began to notice the effect Texas had on McConaughey -- who was born and raised in the Lone Star State -- during their several-week stay in Austin while dealing with a family crisis.
"The gravity is very different in Texas," she added.
The couple told the outlet the realization came at a red light stop when they were driving back from visiting McConaughey's mom.
While McConaughey was behind the wheel and enjoying the view of the Hill Country, Camila said she saw "a peaceful but confident, energetic look" on her husband's face.
At that moment, McConaughey said, Camila asked him, “You want to move here, don’t you?”
"Yep," McConaughey replied, according to Camila, who said she also agreed with the idea.
"And then I said, 'Let’s do it,'" Camila said.
After relocating to Texas, the couple, who shares three children together -- Levi, 11; Vida, 10, and Livingston, 7 -- said their lives have changed for the better.
"Ritual! Ritual came back, whether that was Sunday church, sports, dinner together as a family every night, or staying up after that telling stories in the kitchen, sitting at the island pouring drinks and nibbling while retelling them all in different ways than we told them before," he said.
Another factor the actor said he found helpful was the slow pace of life.
"Time slowed down. The clock was right, the body clock," he said. "And part of that is ritual; part of that is just the distance between places and the way people move. But it's also the hospitality, the courtesy, the common sense, the lack of drama."
The 2024 South's Best Awards are out now on SouthernLiving.com, and the April issue hits newsstands on March 22.
