Matthew McConaughey Recalls How 'Whole Family' Thought Wife Camila Alves Would Reject His Proposal

Matthew McConaughey remembers vividly "hitting the knee" to propose to his wife of four years, Camila Alves.

"I remember hitting the knee, looking into her eyes and I remember her face," the 46-year-old actor recalls in the November issue ofEsquire magazine. "I remember this smile coming up from her feet. I remember her having to catch her breath."

While McConaughey romantically describes how he asked Alves to marry him, the Oscar winner admits that there was a moment where he wasn't sure if she'd accept his proposal. "And she didn’t say yes right away," he explains. "And then the whole family was going, 'Jeezus, she’s gonna say no.'"

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The couple married in 2012 and are now parents to three children, sons Livingston, 3, and Levi, 8, and daughter Vida, 6. McConaughey says he's never felt more like a man than when his oldest boy, Levi, was born. "Man is never more masculine than after the birth of his first child," he says. "I don't mean in a macho way. I mean in terms of giving a man strength."

In June, McConaughey brought Levi on set of his recent Civil War movie, Free State of Jones, and described to ET what it was like having his son at work with him. "They had made a bunch of dummies that looked very, very real," said McConaughey, discussing a battle scene from the film. "I stood beside him and for about a minute he just stared [at them]... He goes, 'Papai, I don't want to go to war.' I was like, ‘Yeah, I hear you.’"

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The doting dad added, "[Levi] got to press the buttons to explode a lot of the things, or at least he thought it was him doing it."

See more of the actor's interview:

EXCLUSIVE: Matthew McConaughey Reveals Son Levi's Reaction to His Civil War Film

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