Elizabeth Banks thought it was just "lust" when she first she met her husband.
The 41-year-old actress tied the knot with her other half Max Handelman in 2003, over a decade after she met him on her first day at the University of Pennsylvania. Elizabeth never expected him to be the man she would settle down with for the long-run.
“I was very independent from a young age. When I met Max, I was not like, ‘I just met my husband!’" she laughed to The Edit.
"I was 18; it was lust. He looked like Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills, 90210. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a college boy. That’s what I’m interested in.’”
The couple welcomed their son Felix through a surrogate in March 2011, followed by their second little boy Magnus in November 2012 through the same means. Elizabeth says motherhood has changed her in countless positive ways, such as making her more "ambitious".
Having stepped behind the camera for her first feature film with Pitch Perfect 2, which she also stars in, the blonde beauty admits it caused a bit of a strain on her family life.
“Directing is a big decision,” she added. “It’s a year and a half of my life and it’s taking my kids out of their daily routine.”
But luckily the gamble paid off as Elizabeth has been praised for her filmmaking skills, and there's even talk of a third instalment of the franchise in the pipeline.
In order to helm the musical comedy she had to jet out of filming for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 pronto once her scenes were shot, which meant she didn't get to say goodbye to everyone.
“Jennifer [Lawrence] didn’t realise I was leaving," Elizabeth reminisced. “Everyone had to get in the trucks and drive somewhere else, so I went back to take off my Effie [Trinket, her character] make-up alone in the rain. Then I got a text from Jennifer saying, ‘Oh God, I just realised. I’m so sorry!’ Which is totally her, so great.”
