IT’S MY LIFE

But I Thought Everybody Did That?

Fun and games can be very different from one house to the next

Photo by Magnific.com

I thought everybody looked at movies and actors the same way as I did. The same as my family. We’d recognized their faces, their names, past roles, and then quiz each other when they popped up in another film or TV show. It was a game in our house. We called it “Recognize her?”

Early in my marriage, I learned not everyone grew up playing this game. Certainly not my husband. He didn’t associate actors with their movies. The biggies like Meryl, Denzel, Sam, the Toms, sure, but he didn’t connect Ben Affleck, Anne Hathaway, or Zoe Saldaña from one movie to another.

He couldn’t name two movies starring Sandra Bullock. It was baffling because we watched several of her movies together and he liked them all. Thought she was a cutie. But from Annie in SPEED to Gracie Hart to Debbie Ocean, he never connected the characters she played or the movies she starred in to the actor herself.

That was incredible to me. How could that connection fail to connect? Automatic-like?

How? Simple. He didn’t grow up playing the game.

It took me a minute to accept it since I grew up in a family of movie fanatics. It was our love of movies that held us together. Even on our worst days, we could still bond over a favorite film.

I’d have to remind myself of this after quoting a famous movie line and hubby would look at me, clueless. Or while watching a movie, I might reference another character the lead actor played.

Sometimes he would be genuinely surprised. “Is that her? I would have never guessed it.”

But most times, he’d just shrug. He couldn’t care less.

Remembering movies, actors, and their past roles was not a game in everyone’s household. But in mine? It was our family’s favorite past time.