Back in Time

How We Met

(Kimberly)

The summer of 2004 after our junior year at Princeton we were both interning on the Warner Bros lot. Andrew was at Section 8, George Clooney's company and I was right next door at Thunder Road and Warner Independent Pictures. Our paths crossed at the Princeton in Hollywood BBQ, when I bumped into a puzzled Andrew, who asked if he was going the right way. I didn't see much of Andrew at the BBQ and afterwards my mom tried to persuade me to go say hi to the Princeton boy who worked in Clooney's office, but I was too shy. Fast forward to October 2004, when I noticed an audition notice for a Thesis film that would be shooting over fall break. I debated whether or not to go and finally decided to do it. I walked into the audition at Theatre Intime and there was the cute, lost boy from that summer. 

(Andrew)

So I'm sitting in the leather chairs in the Intime lobby, and in walks a beautiful smiling girl who looks familiar. "Oh it's you" she says, and then I remembered passing her once in a while in the cross walk at the WB lot last summer. I had known she went to Princeton too, and had met and shaken hands with her when she led a posse of people into the PiH BBQ, but didn't know much more than that (oh, what could have happened if we'd hung out more that summer... but that doesn't matter,  there'd be plenty of time for that down the road). She was utterly charming and I cast her in my project immediately. We went up to Vermont during the Fall break to shoot, and I got to know Kimberly a little better over a Chinese meal at the Panda House. I couldn't help but be fascinated by this young woman the more I learned about her. I think it wasn't until I got back to Princeton that my roommates almost flipped out when they heard that I had had Kimberly Woods up at my house over break. 

(Kimberly)

Apparently, some of Andrew's friends knew of me from the Maxim 

modeling contest that I had been in a couple times (I was a semi-finalist). I guess they showed him a couple of my pictures and he was surprised that this was the same person he had brought to his thesis shoot. After we got back to Princeton, Andrew asked me to be in another project of his called Electromagnetism. 

(Andrew)

All of a sudden this sweet, quiet girl I knew had this alternative persona from these pictures I saw on her modeling website. I was a little bit intimidated. Was she famous? But I was determined that I should be able to work with "celebrities" if I had to, and maybe it would be a good idea to get some practice working with this talented girl I now knew. So I wrote a short film for class with her in mind and offered her the part.

(Kimberly)

Next thing I knew, I was disoriented and squirming around on the floor being hit with electric shocks. Not exactly your 

vision of romance. I was very impressed with Andrew's script because it was well-crafted and intelligent and I was also flattered that after the small part in his thesis film, he had wanted to work with me again as a lead. We shot this torture film in about 4 hours. I was sick during it and had to attend directing class immediately after. Andrew offered to run to Frist and bring dinner for me to my class, which I thought was very sweet. I told him I'd be ok and ran upstairs.

(Andrew)

She wouldn't let me get her dinner. Bummer.

Luckily we had the beginning of a good friendship going, along with what Kim called "mutual admiration," which was really us having secret crushes on each other, but we wouldn't admit that to ourselves or each other. Not for a (long) while yet. Next, she cast me in her final project for her directing workshop (I act?). 

(Kimberly)

Who's he kidding, he always casts himself in stuff.

(Andrew)

Total Recall - The Short Play. Adapted for the stage by Kimberly Woods. It was awe-inspiring. And she brought me birthday cake. That was a total surprise. It was a fancy cake too, one of the fanciest I can ever recall having for a birthday. She had someone bring it out for me during the last scene of a rehearsal. I guess everybody was in on it but me. I was shocked that she would think of me in the middle of working on her stressful major project. Shocked and smiling inside.

(Kimberly)

When it came time for my thesis project, required to attain my theater certification, I recruited Andrew. We worked together to write and produce The Man on Her Breath, during which we spent a whole lot of time together and became even closer. Lots of time in the editing

 room really makes you get to know someone. I remember one of the highlights being our discovery that we both watched Peanut Butter Solution when we were kids. This was HUGE. I think we realized we were soul mates then and there (although we still didn't admit it). 

(Andrew)

During Man on Her Breath, I had a scene where Anthony, one of my roommates, kisses Kimberly in the elevator. It was Kimberly's first onscreen kiss. Probably Anthony's too. At some point later, I asked Anthony what it had been like. He laughed good-naturedly and said something like, "You should cast yourself in that role sometime." I think my roommates had figured out that I had a bit of a crush on Kimberly, or that if I didn't yet, I should. 

There were a bunch of little moments in those last couple months of college: Kimberly bravely joining my group of friends to go see Revenge of the Sith; me proofreading Kimberly's paper late at night while she conked out in my room; the train ride to NYC  where we took goofy pictures of one another; Kimberly inviting me to watch a video and me not being able to go because of the Hello Sue! editing marathon. And, most memorably, the maddeningly hot moment where we found ourselves together on the dance floor of Terrace at the beginning of graduation weekend. We still weren't going to let ourselves be more than friends, but I think we both knew we felt a little something extra, and now we both knew the other knew it too. 

By the time we were leaving Princeton, we each knew we would be moving to Los Angeles afterward. We had a preliminary plan to band together with several other recent grads in order to get a better place there for the first year, and as a group, help one another get started in the entertainment industry. It was the beginning of the next chapter of our adventure together.