Max Handelman isn’t just Elizabeth Banks’ business partner at production company Brownstone Productions: He’s also her husband of 15 years. And at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, the 45-year-old actress reflected on how they complement each other’s strengths.
“We work very, very well together, my husband and I,” Banks told Us Weekly and other reporters during a TCA panel in Pasadena, California, on Monday, February 11, adding that she and Handelman, 45, have “a lot of mutual respect” and a “very good balance.”
She elaborated: “We have a good yin and yang. I’m a passionate artist, and he’s a very even-keeled politician.”
The duo have been a couple ever since they both studied at the University of Pennsylvania. “If I hadn’t gone to Penn, I wouldn’t have him, and then I don’t know if I’d have as successful of a business,” Banks said on Monday.
The Hunger Games alum and the Fantasy Football Matters author wed in 2003 and then welcomed two sons by surrogate: Felix, 7, and Magnus, 6. And all these years later, they’re still finding ways to keep the flame going strong. “The last romantic thing he did for me was, he took the kids to soccer in the rain while I went and got a massage for my birthday,” Banks said on Monday, after turning 45 and celebrating with an animal print-themed dinner in Los Angeles the day prior.
Now the couple is excited about their company producing the upcoming Hulu comedy Shrill, a comedy based on the nonfiction book by Lindy West and starring Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant. On Monday, Banks explained why she enjoys working behind the scenes. “Honestly, it’s about [loving] making a promise to someone,” she said. “I love telling Lindy West, ‘I’m gonna turn your book into a TV show, and it’s gonna star Aidy Bryant.’ I really try to do what I say I’m gonna do, and make it happen.”
Shrill starts streaming on Hulu on March 15.
With reporting by Amanda Champagne
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