Jennifer Love Hewitt, 45, says her 11-year marriage to Brian Hallisay is ‘like 190 years in Hollywood’

Jennifer Love Hewitt has opened up about the secret of her successful 11-year marriage to husband and fellow actor Brian Hallisay.

The actress and author usually keeps her personal and professional lives separate, but since they cross paths in her latest film, The Christmas Junkie, Hewitt shared a few tidbits about their romance in an article with People.

Hewitt, 45, is proud that they have stuck together through thick and thin and three children, saying of her more than a decade of marital bliss: “That’s like 190 years in Hollywood.”

The couple tied the knot on November 21, 2013, just days before their eldest daughter, Autumn, was born.

They had met a few years earlier, first on the set of Love Bites in 2011, but sparks didn’t fly until they worked together again on The Client List in 2012.

“I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life,” the 9-1-1 star told the publication.

“I told my manager and friend at the time, ‘I’m going to marry that man and have his children.’ She said, “Honey, I think everyone thinks they’re going to marry that man and have his kids.” I thought, “Yeah, but I’m going to do it. Just look.”‘

And while it was love at first sight for Hewitt, she thinks it may have taken 46-year-old Hallisay a little more time to come up with the idea.

“I don’t know if it was immediate for him,” she admitted, “but for me it was immediate.”

The I Know What You Did Last Summer star said she was attracted to Hallisay not only because he was handsome, but also because “he was kind and he was good and close with his family, and he was smart.”

‘We were just having fun and I was hooked. I was lucky enough to end up with him. And guess what? I married him and had his children.’

The couple welcomed their second child, Atticus, nine, in 2015.

Hewitt and Hallisay moved in 2020, and the couple thought this was the perfect time to renew their vows, inviting Autumn and Atticus to participate.

“It was really sweet, and it was so great for our kids to be there and have that as a memory,” the Ghost Whisperer star said of the experience.

“They talk about it all the time, which I like. It was during [the height of] COVID, so we were just looking for magic at that point.

“It has truly become a magical time for us.”

Another magical moment was when they expanded their family with surprise baby Aiden in 2021.

“I think like most parents with three kids and full-time jobs and all that, we struggle to find our time, but I really wake up and choose Brian every day, and I would choose him every time,” she says . said about her honey.

‘I really feel that way, even when he drives me crazy. And he keeps choosing me, thank God. I am always so very happy that my children are half him.’

Fans will see sparks fly between husband and wife as they star in The Christmas Junkie, debuting on Lifetime Saturday, December 14.

Hewitt co-wrote the script and directed the holiday drama about a woman experiencing her first Christmas without her mother, hired to decorate a country house for the holidays.

Hallisay stars as the house manager who says, “Christmas isn’t really my thing.”

The script was inspired by Hewitt’s love of all things holiday and how she dealt with the death of her own mother, Patricia, in June 2012.

The film was a family affair with all three of the couple’s children appearing.

“It was really fun to be in a movie with Brian in honor of my mother because he honors her in our lives so well, even though he only met her once,” the director explained.

‘So it was special that he was there. It’s like our little Christmas love letter that we’ll always have.”

Hewitt’s relationship with her late mother also inspired her new book, Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical, which hits shelves Tuesday.