“One of the reasons I like Texas is because there’s no one in control.” —WILLIE NELSON
L AST SUMMER, word got out that Matthew McConaughey would be in Birmingham for several weeks to shoot a movie. This sort of brush with Hollywood doesn’t happen that often in the Magic City, so people were excited, maybe even a little giddy. There were all sorts of sightings around town, and we had plenty of chatter in the Southern Living offices. He was spotted having dinner at chef Frank Stitt’s Italian restaurant, Bottega; playing tennis at a local country club; eating lunch at a cafe called the Frothy Monkey; and visiting patients at our award-winning hospital, Children’s of Alabama. His son Livingston was reported to be enrolled in coach Nick Saban’s youth football camp, and his wife, Camila, posted a video on Instagram from Adios, a downtown cocktail bar. They appeared to like Birmingham, and the feeling was mutual. (“He just seems like a good ol’ Texas boy,” one woman told the local paper.) It also turned out that Matthew and his family were staying in a house around the corner from me, and I’d never seen so many of my neighbors out walking their dogs.
At Southern Living, we decided this visit warranted a little hospitality, so we reached out to see if he and Camila would like to stop by the office. Matthew declined because of his movie schedule, but Camila accepted our invitation, and we soon realized that she is just as charming, funny, and laid-back as her husband. She showed up one day (driving herself); toured our Test Kitchens; and sat down with me to record an episode of Biscuits & Jam, our podcast about food, music, and Southern culture. Camila has a lifestyle website called Women of Today, and we had a great conversation about the community she’s created, the traditions she grew up with in her native Brazil, and why she and Matthew decided to raise their kids in Texas. She also hung out with the staff for a while and talked about how much her family loved Birmingham.
Fast-forward a few months, and several of us were on the McConaugheys’ home turf in Marfa, Texas. This little high-desert town is where they go to relax, drink some tequila, and disappear for a while. It’s also where Matthew wrote most of his best-selling (and very entertaining) memoir, Greenlights, and it exerts a gravitational pull that keeps them coming back. “I like the poetry down here,” he told me in an interview. “I like the sense of time—how 60 minutes feels like an hour.” As you’ll read in writer Jonathan Miles’ profile of the McConaugheys, “No Place Like Texas” (page 102), it’s somewhere they can reflect, recharge, and rejuvenate.
After three days in Marfa and quite a few ranch waters, I had to agree. Like so many of the best spots in the South, the pace was slow, the people were friendly, and the food was as good as it gets. It was a world away from Birmingham, but somehow it still felt like home.
Sid Evans, Editor in Chief sid@southernliving.com
photograph by MILLER MOBLEY
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WARDROBE STYLING: SASA THOMANN/ONE REPRESENTS; CAMILA’S MAKEUP: ADAM DE CRUZ/ONE REPRESENTS; CAMILA’S HAIR: ROMINA MANENTI/HOME AGENCY; MATTHEW’S MAKEUP: KARA YOSHIMOTO BUA/A-FRAME AGENCY; MATTHEW’S HAIR: JOHNNY HERNANDEZ/JULIAN MARC; DRESS AND BELT: ROBERTO CAVALLI; JEWELRY: JACQUIE AICHE; CAMILA’S HAT: RAS REDWINE; MATTHEW’S WARDROBE: HIS OW
