Matthew McConaughey is being celebrated as a hometown hero in his stomping grounds of Texas.
The Hollywood icon, 56, hails from the Lone Star State and has been living in Texas for more than 10 years after rising to fame in Los Angeles.
Now the state capital is recognizing McConaughey’s impact on cinema and the community.
The local theater, the Alamo Drafthouse Mueller, has been renamed to the Matthew McConaughey Cinema – and August 10, 2026 has now been declared as ‘Matthew McConaughey Cinema Day’ in Austin.
In recognition of the moment, the McConaugheys showed up in full force to the theater’s dedication ceremony on Monday.
McConaughey, his wife Camila Alves, 43, and their three children – sons Levi, 18, Livingston, 13, and daughter Vida, 16 – posed for a rare family moment as they honored the actor in their family.
Matthew McConaughey took a rare family photo with his wife Camila Alves and their three children at the dedication ceremony of the newly renamed theater, Matthew McConaughey Cinema.
‘More than just what’s on the screen, movies have always been about who you watch them with and the memories you take home,’ Matthew said in a news release about the theater, according to Fox 7 Austin.
‘Alamo Drafthouse has championed that kind of moviegoing from the very beginning, and to have a theater dedicated in my name in the city that’s shaped so much of who I am means a great deal to me,’ he continued.
The mayor, Kirk Watson, described McConaughey as a ‘beloved local Austin icon.’
Watson said the renaming of the theater marked ‘a wonderful way to celebrate his professional accomplishments and celebrate someone who genuinely loves this city.’
The event also included a screening of McConaughey’s new movie, The Rivals Of Amziah King, along with a live musical performance by the actor.
McConaughey strummed the mandolin as he performed alongside several musicians, including members of the band The Last Bison.
After years of living in Los Angeles as a famous actor, McConaughey moved back to his home state of Texas with his family in 2014.
The move was partially born out of McConaughey’s desperation to no longer be Hollywood’s ‘rom-com dude.’ He ‘stopped’ taking roles and relocated to a ranch in Austin.
McConaughey, his wife Camila Alves , and their three children – sons Levi, 18, Livingston, 13, and daughter Vida, 16 – were present celebrating the special occasion
The event also included a live musical performance by the actor
The actor performed alongside several musicians, including members of the band The Last Bison
‘I was so strong in that lane that anything outside of that lane, dramas and stuff that I wanted to do, were like, no, no, no, no, no McConaughey. Hollywood said no, no, no, no, you should stay there, stay there,’ he recently revealed on a November 2024 episode of the Good Trouble with Nick Kyrgios podcast.
‘I didn’t want to. So, since I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I stopped doing what I was doing.
‘I went down [to Texas] and I made a pact with my wife and said, “I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do.”‘
After what he described as a few ‘wobbly’ years, McConaughey’s major career move eventually paid off and he won his first Academy Award for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014.
McConaughey’s Texas relocation was also necessary for his family life with wife Camila.
The mayor, Kirk Watson, described McConaughey as a ‘beloved local Austin icon’
The Alamo Drafthouse Mueller is now Matthew McConaughey Cinema
The Lone Star State native and his spouse exchanged vows at their home in Austin, Texas on June 9, 2012, and officially moved back there (from Malibu, California) two years later.
Last year, McConaughey shared on TODAY that life in Austin offers his family a sense of ‘security’ and that always intended to return to Texas once he welcomed children with Alves.
‘This has always been home, I mean, there’s multiple reasons for [the move]. I mean, this is where I have a great relationship with time – meaning 60 seconds feels like a minute, a mile feels like a mile,’ he explained to the hosts.
He added, ‘I like to live in a place and for a home to be a place where I have a good relationship with time.’
The Dallas Buyers Club star noted that his family is based out of Texas, including his mother, 92, and brothers who live in Houston and Midland.
‘Our family unit is here – we have resources and a backbone of security here,’ The Lincoln Lawyer actor added.
The Texas native rose to fame in films such as Dazed and Confused
‘I wanted them to have what I grew up around,’ McConaughey said. ‘There’s a solid … amount of common sense that runs through it, it’s untalked about, but we understand it here.’
He hailed Austin as a ‘very creative city in a state that is very structured,’ and one where people are accepted for who they are.
McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde, Texas and raised in Longview, Texas, went to college at the University of Texas at Austin prior to entering show business.
He remains an ardent fan of the school’s football team, the Texas Longhorns, often appearing on sidelines at games.
‘The rule in Austin is “Be You” – that’s always been the rule in this city – and we should make sure that that remains the rule – just “Be You,”‘ he said.
In a joint interview for Southern Living earlier this year, McConaughey and Alves shared that although they were living a ‘happy life’ in Malibu, Texas offered them a lifestyle with no ‘drama’ and more ‘hospitality.’
Alves said that she knew deep down that McConaughey wanted to move back to Texas after she witnessed firsthand how ‘peaceful’ he was while he was there.
McConaughey said that living in Texas has brought ‘ritual’ back to their family life.
‘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 explained.
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