REAL LIFE ROM-COM

She Heard He Was a ‘Jerk’—But Married Him Anyway

Amy Landecker and Bradley Whitford break down how their unlikely love story inspired their new rom-com on “Obsessed: The Podcast.”

He was a “swaggering p***k.” She was “nuts.” Together, they were a perfect match.

“I actually can see the first time Bradley reached across the table at our first table read and shook my hand. His energy, his swag, just made me uncomfortable,” actress and director Amy Landecker, 56, told host Matt Wilstein on Obsessed: The Podcast. “I think I probably was attracted to it, but my response to that was like, ‘He’s a jerk.’”

“Amy has repeatedly pointed out to me that everyone’s first perception of me is that I am a swaggering p***k,” The West Wing star Whitford, 66, joked. “But then you get over it.”

“And he also, I think, thought all actresses were nuts,” Landecker said of Whitford, who was married to Malcolm in the Middle star Jane Kaczmarek for nearly 30 years before they divorced in 2010. “Which we are, but we’re delightful,” she added with a laugh.

The Hollywood couple met on the set of Amazon Prime Video’s Transparent in 2014, and both had already been married with kids once before. (Landecker divorced her husband, journalist Jackson Lynch, in 2011.) During the couple’s meet-cute, Whitford had been wearing a blonde wig for the show, and “was about 30 pounds heavier and in heels,” Landecker recalled.

“It wasn’t really a great look,” she joked.

More than a year passed between their first encounter and the beginning of their relationship. It was only when they began campaigning for the Emmy Awards a year later that they considered dating. After some light flirtation during a photoshoot, they started opening up to each other.

“I don’t know how the conversation started, but we started talking about our divorces and our dating life post-divorce, and how colorful our dating lives had been and how miserable we were from not having our kids,” Landecker recalled.

“When I asked her out, I basically said—and it’s in the movie—‘I’ve developed terrible taste in women. Would you like to go out with me?’” three-time Emmy winner Whitford said.

“Oh, that’s so flattering,” Landecker added.

Whitford is referring to the new Landecker-written and directed film For Worse, which stars the two of them as recent divorcées trying to find love again. Much of the film, also written by Landecker, is inspired by their own relationship.

“It was really about our divorces,” Landecker said, “the idea that we both have been divorced and sort of how we connected on the way that we felt during that time, which was really painful.”

“So the movie’s really about that. And then hopefully finding the happy ending and the connection and the grace to give yourself forgiveness and others’ forgiveness for the way they’re behaving,” Landecker added. “And to sort of be able to look back at your absurd foibles and have a sense of humor about it.”

“We’re the happy ending part. We’re the ‘for better’ part,” the writer-director concluded. “For worse comes before.”

Landecker and Whitford eloped in 2019. In addition to their joint roles on Transparent and For Worse, the couple both appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale—for which Whitford earned his third Emmy—leading to their comedic wedding announcement.

For Worse is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

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Owen Mason-HillEditorial intern, Obsessed

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