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In the early aughts, before Emmy-nominee Max Greenfield was Max Greenfield (you know, Schmidt on New Girl, Lev on Running Point, the list goes on), he was a newly working actor getting his start on fan-favorite shows like Gilmore Girls and Boston Public. Tess Sanchez, meanwhile, was a few years into what would be a long-running and successful career in casting.
The dating world was very different then, especially if you lived in Los Angeles. There were no apps; instead, the “in” crowd (or those that desperately wanted to be a part of it) knew which Hollywood club to be at every night of the week. Even if you ended up a hot club, but it wasn’t their night, you might as well have gone to a Hard Rock Cafe (no offense to Hard Rock Cafe).
Meeting people back then was easy. But meeting someone at one of those Hollywood nightclubs and staying together for over 20 years? That’s almost too perfect, even by Hollywood standards.
And yet, that’s Sanchez and Greenfield’s story.
“It feels so retro,” Sanchez says, looking back. “People still had answering machines back then.”
As the story goes, Sanchez was out with her friends; Greenfield was out with his. They locked eyes across the room.
“We’ve been asked many times, ‘How did you guys meet?’ because he’s an actor and I’m a casting director. People assume we met on the casting couch. But [the reality is] when we met, we both were broke, but with a total drive of what we each wanted to do. We started at the same place, and we built our life together at the same pace.”
While their meet-cute has the true makings of the next great rom-com, Sanchez is first to admit that the road to matrimony in 2008 wasn’t easy or clear cut. They broke up during their courtship—as many couples often do—and Greenfield went into rehab for an addiction to drugs and alcohol (he’s been sober since 2006). Sanchez knew if she was going to tell their full love story, it meant not glossing over the challenging times.
“It was such a critical part of the story,” she says. “And with our two kids now, we’ve always been very honest with them [about it]. They understand that Max doesn’t drink alcohol and what that process was like. They’re very accepting of it.”
If anything, Sanchez says getting to a healthy place where they can talk openly and without judgment of past struggles has been invaluable as a parent. “I’ve recently had an opportunity to give my daughter boyfriend advice. I have so many opinions about love and breakups and marriage and first meetings. It’s like my favorite subject.”
It’s that passion that makes Sanchez’s essays so engaging to read. From her love story with Greenfield (who also wrote the foreword) to the darkest day of her esteemed career, Sanchez found solace in being so raw and honest. Now, in this partial exclusive excerpt from We’ve Decided to Go in a Different Direction, fans of the couple will see firsthand how their meet-cute unfolded, and why Sanchez was initially turned off by her husband’s profession.
Tess Sanchez and Max Greenfield at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards
Jason Merritt/Getty Images
Chapter 2: Red Wool Beanie: Shared Card
After a Christmas vacation spent with my parents, I was back in Los Angeles, ready to start 2003 in new digs, newly single. I headed out with my girls—think Meagan Good, Jessica Biel, and Selena Gomez. I would be J.Lo (yeah, I get it, I wish) in her In Living Color era, the look being more Jenny the funky fly girl.
It was a Saturday night on the Cahuenga Corridor, a new up-and-coming hot strip of bars and restaurants lining both sides of Cahuenga Boulevard. We were out for a quick bite, then to a bar called Nacional. We’d landed a few seats in the corner when I looked across the room and locked eyes with a guy. And when I say “locked,” it was like a science fiction movie where a tractor beam of light connected us. I was jolted down to my toes. My friends and I continued to gab until “Jessica” asked, “Who’s that guy staring at you?” I replied that I didn’t know, but I was officially tech avail, so I smiled and waved him over. With Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’” playing in the background, he made his way over from the bar in his jeans, white T-shirt, and red wool beanie, with the biggest smile on his face, free of any restraint.
He clocked me with his warm, welcoming eyes and said, “Hi, I’m Max,” in a raspy, deep, cigarette-singed voice. I looked up at him and said, “Hi, I’m Tess. Have we met before? What do you do?” He responded with just a bit of importance, “I’m an actor. I recently moved here from New York.” His accent also gave him away. In my head I thought, Noooo, not an actor. Be anything, just not an actor. But the immediate and palpable chemistry between us quickly erased my hesitation over his chosen profession. I asked if I could see his hat. He took it off and out flopped this thick, wavy black hair. Hmm…yes, this will do.
As the night wore on, we continued our small talk, and each of our respective groups of friends faded away until I insisted that we go and find them. Max agreed but asked for my phone number first, and I obliged. He then said, “Don’t leave without saying goodbye.” I caught up with my friends just as they were heading out, so I didn’t have a chance to find Max. Yes, I was intrigued, but he was an actor. Besides, he had my number…if he calls, he calls, I told myself. As I walked in my door that night, my phone was ringing. I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Max. You left without saying goodbye.”
I smiled.
“Can I come by and say good night to you?”
Hmmm, is this guy going to chop me up into pieces? As polite as I could muster at 1:40 a.m., I answered, “Oh, I don’t think so. It’s pretty late.”
“I won’t even stay five minutes. I just want to see you,” he persisted.
In hindsight, maybe it was not the smartest idea, but for some reason I agreed. At least if I was murdered by this guy, they could trace my last phone call back to him. No less than 10 minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it, there was Max. We stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, smiling. And there it was again, that sci-fi lightning bolt connecting us.
“Well?” I finally said to cut the tension. Then he went in for the kiss. A perfect, showstopping, drop-your-glass kiss, with a jolt of electricity so intense between us, I am pretty sure we lit up the entire solar system the second our lips touched. It rendered me speechless.
Max pulled away and said, “Now that’s how you say good night!” As he stepped back, he took off his red wool beanie and handed it to me. My thoughts were a jumble: What’s this for? A souvenir? I remained quiet while he turned on his heel to walk back to his car. I knew I looked confused. Looking over his shoulder with the confidence of Ryan Gosling, he shrugged and said, “I guess you have to see me again…you have my hat.”
And with that, he got back into his car and drove away. True to his word, this all went down in the span of five minutes. Well, I thought, that was something. What the actual fuck?
Excerpted from WE’VE DECIDED TO GO IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION (Essays) by Tess Sanchez. Copyright © 2025 by TESS SANCHEZ. Reprinted by permission of GALLERY BOOKS, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.