Matthew McConaughey says it was love at first sight when he met his wife Camila Alves.

Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey

Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey

The 'Dallas Buyers Club' star was taken aback the moment he laid eyes on the 34-year-old model but insists he wasn't looking for a relationship at the time.

Recalling his first meeting with the brunette beauty, he said: "I was very happily single and healthily single. I was not looking. I was sleeping well, I was spiritually sound, I was good hanging with me.

"Out of the corner of my eye, this sort of aqua-green figure went floating across the frame about 20 feet in front of me. My eye went up and I remember what came out of my mouth. I didn't say 'Who is that?' I went, 'What is that?' As l was trying to get that's attention across the room, I went in my head, 'This is not the kind of woman you call over across the room, McConaughey. Get your ass out of your chair and go get her.' Which I did.

"We went on our first date three nights later and I knew then ... I've been wanting to go on a date with her for the last nine years and not with anybody else."

And the 46-year-old actor also opened up about the couple's three children, Levi, seven, Vida, six, and Livingston, three.

He told PEOPLE magazine: "Levi is the architect. Levi observes, Vida sees, Livingston does.

"Levi is the most considerate person I know but he loves to measure the anatomy of the situation. Very much a perfectionist like me. Vida just makes sense of situations. She cuts right to the nut of the answer real quick ... Then Livingston is the doer. He's the monarch."