Dave Franco and Alison Brie have been married for five years. They are one of the most private (and most in love) couples in Hollywood.
And like Judd Apatow and his wife Leslie Mann, the pair has also worked on several projects together. Brie and Franco even wrote a romantic comedy in just two weeks during their 2020 quarantine.
Here's the secret to their solid partnership.
How Did Dave Franco & Alison Brie Meet?
The two first met in 2011 at Mardi Gras. Brie later revealed that a mutual friend had set them up. "The two of them are friends and she had invited him out to dinner with us there," she told The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon in 2020, "he was sitting next to her across the table and … my friend texts me under the table and was like, 'You should hook up with Dave.'" Brie recalled responding with a thumbs up. "It was 48 hours of drugs and sex, a lot of making out," she said of what happened next. Later that year, Franco invited her to Paris. He had left her a note in her sweatshirt.
In summer that year, Brie threw Franco a surprise birthday party. "We had known each other for three or four months and then it was his birthday and I wanted to do something special for him," she told Seth Meyers. However, she didn't know that the Day Shift star hated surprises. In an interview with Fallon, he said that "Alison and I still talk about how if we could survive my surprise party, we can survive anything." In April 2012, the Horse Girl actress said that she knew Franco was a good match for her early on.
"There was a semi-immediate click. Probably about a year into our relationship I was like, 'Oh wow, this thing I thought I maybe never would do, I could definitely see myself doing it with you,'" she told Metro, adding that she felt that the relationship was getting serious a year into it. The next year, the two starred in a Funny Or Die skit called Dream Girl. But they didn't make their red carpet debut until June 2015 at the Dior Homme fashion show in Paris.
How Did Dave Franco Propose To Alison Brie?
Two months after their red carpet debut, news broke that the two just got engaged. "Congrats Davy and Allison!!! Engaged!!! I WUUUUUUV YOU," James Franco confirmed on Instagram at the time. Brie later told Larry King that Franco surprised her with the proposal when they were in Big Sur, California. She was so shocked that she started laughing when the Nerve actor got down on one knee. She even asked him if he was serious about it. In March 2017, the couple tied the knot in an "intimate" and "really fun" ceremony. "It was great, it was really special," Franco told Entertainment Tonight that same month. "It was intimate, and it was really fun."
Three months later, their first film together, The Little Hours was released. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter back then, Franco revealed that the movie taught them not to watch each other film sex scenes. "Brie should not be on set while I film sex scenes with other women," said the actor.
In September that year, Franco revealed that marrying The Rental star saved him from being a crazy cat guy. "I don't know how I became the quirky cat guy," he told Jimmy Fallon. "At one point in my life I was the single guy with two 16-pound cats. It definitely weeds out a lot of potential dating partners. Alison [Brie] loves them, thank God. She was really the only option [for marriage]."
What's The Secret To Dave Franco & Alison Brie's Happy Marriage?
When asked how they've managed to keep a happy marriage, Brie told ET that it's all about communication. "Communication. It's all about good communication," she said. "Everybody says it, but I think that's why we try to work together so much honestly, just so we can spend more time together. So we don't have to be apart so much." She added that they don't let their busy schedules get in between them because they "make an effort to connect every day, and that's important."
Brie is also starring in the upcoming dramedy, Somebody I Used to Know which Franco directed and co-wrote with his wife herself. "To me the best part is getting to experience all these other people on set realizing how incredible he is," the actress said about working with her husband. "I already know, [but] it's really fun to watch all the new eyes kind of take him in. And as a director, he is extraordinary."
