Alison Brie and Dave Franco Share Their Sweet Love Story, from Mardi Gras 'Walk of Shame' to Marital Bliss (Exclusive)
Alison Brie and Dave Franco open up to PEOPLE about their love story
The pair met in New Orleans in 2011 when a mutual friend played matchmaker; they wed six years later
The frequent collaborators costar in the new horror movie TogetherAlison Brie and Dave Franco's first weekend together is a blur of beer and uninhibited behavior. No surprise since they initially hooked up during Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 2011.
A mutual friend who was with them in the Big Easy played matchmaker after realizing there was an attraction between the two. As Brie and Franco tell it, they shared a drink spiked with molly, and that was that. 'The rest of the night we were lip-locked. Every photo from that night….' says Brie, before Franco cuts in: 'lip-locked in front of our friends. We apologize.'
'We had a great two days together,' continues Brie. 'When I did my walk of shame in the morning, I accidentally stole his perfect white T-shirt, and he had to reach out to me to get it back. At the end of the trip, I wrote my phone number on it and I hid it in his bag, so he found it on the way to the airport and texted.'
In the following weeks, they spent time together in New York where Franco was filming a movie. They were clearly in the early stages of a budding romance at that point, but Brie still wanted to play it cool when Franco invited her to join him in Paris, where he continued to film.
Before she left, she told some pals she was meeting up with a guy she had just started seeing. 'They were like, 'Oh, you gotta lock a lock on the Pont des Arts,' ' she recalls, referencing the pedestrian bridge where lovers attach padlocks to the railing before throwing the key into the Seine River. 'I was like, 'No, that's thirsty!' '
Fast-forward to France, where bubbly former Community star Brie and self-described 'shy' Neighbors actor Franco are enjoying a rainy day out. 'Dave gives me his jacket. I put it on and reach in the pocket, and there's a lock with our initials on it,' says Brie.
'It actually was great because I really was like, 'You like me? Oh my God!' ' Quips Franco of the almost-too-good-to-be-true story: 'It sounds like we're making this up.'
Though that story is indeed real, Brie and Franco do like to play pretend from time to time. The pair, who wed in 2017, have collaborated on five movies, including the comedy The Disaster Artist and the thriller The Rental.
'Part of the reason we started working together was really just to spend time together, because our jobs tear us apart a lot of the time,' explains Franco, 40, who grew up in Northern California alongside actor brothers Tom and James.
https://people-app.onelink.me/HNIa/kz7l4cuf
Adds Los Angeles native Brie, 42: 'I feel like every time we do a new artistic endeavor together, we learn so much about each other and come closer, and I fall in love with him in new ways.'
Their latest project is no light romp. In the horror comedy Together, they play a couple whose two bodies literally start to merge after they spend the night in a cave where a supernatural force dwells. Making the film, which takes the idea of codependency to a twisted place, 'is the most intense experience we've ever had on-set,' says Franco.
In more ways than one. The prosthetics that bound Brie and Franco together for up to 10 hours forced them to even go to the bathroom at the same time. 'That was the craziest thing,' notes Brie. 'Obviously we've peed in front of each other before. But not while touching skin-to-skin.'
Adds Franco: 'I remember in that moment thinking we could not have made this movie with anyone else. And then I grabbed her some toilet paper and we went back to work.'
Though Franco and Brie love to join forces onscreen, they recognize the need to take on solo jobs too. 'It's important for our independence,' says Brie, who stars as Evil-Lyn in the live-action He-Man movie Masters of the Universe, due out next year.
Franco, who will soon appear in November's heist thriller Now You See Me: Now You Don't, agrees. "We also don't want to burn people out on us, where they're just like, 'Go away.'"
The couple — who are both type A about work, according to Brie — have no problem winding down at home (where their two cats, Max and Otis, follow them from room to room).
If they're collaborating on something, they'll set work-life boundaries: 'Okay, we can write from noon to 5, then it's dinnertime, and let's hang,' explains Brie.
Queued up are often reality TV favorites like The Bachelor or Love Island — and Brie has a habit of imitating the 'sloppy' onscreen kisses with her husband. 'I think it's funny,' she says. 'It makes him very uncomfortable, and it makes me laugh so much.'
Not that Franco truly minds. As he puts it, 'There's a lot of love in the house.'
Together is now playing in theaters.
Read the original article on People
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