Originally appeared on E! Online
Grace Van Patten isn’t telling any lies about her first impression of Jackson White.
In fact, the “Tell Me Lies” actress revealed she was first introduced to her costar and future boyfriend during a very awkward Zoom chemistry read for the Hulu series.
“I didn’t like Jackson,” Van Patten admitted to host Alex Cooper on the Oct. 1 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast. “We talk about this all the time. I had done a bunch of Zoom chemistry reads because it was still Covid.”
With the 28-year-old officially scoring the leading role as Lucy, she was reading scenes with actors who would bring her counterpart, Stephen, to life.
“Jackson, I had heard, was the favorite,” she recalled. “So, I’m excited for his thing. He gets on, and — I’ve told him this — I’m like, ‘Oh, this is like a serious actor, like, actor-y actor.’ So, I was just like, ‘Ugh, God.’ But he was so good.”
READ Tell Me Lies’ Grace Van Patten Shares Rare Insight Into Romance With Costar Jackson White
“I was like, ‘Alright, it’s fine, maybe we won’t get along, but he’s, like, perfect for the part,'” the “Nine Perfect Strangers” alum continued. “He’s so talented and great.”
Everything changed, however, when the pair finally met in person for the next round of auditions. She added, “It was a completely different energy. He just told me he was really nervous for the Zoom.”
It turns out, the pair didn’t need the cameras rolling for their romance to blossom.
“I was so in the zone of the show and being so excited about doing it and like finding the guy,” Van Patten explained. “My brain was very like “Tell Me Lies” and I kept thinking about him.”
Although at first, she couldn’t tell whether it was a crush or just the excitement of the new project, things became a lot clearer during a night out with some mutual friends.
“We all had dinner,” she noted. “We vibed instantly. It was that night we were both like, ‘We have a crush on each other.’ This is probably the worst thing that could happen. We sat on the stoop for I think like six hours and talked about every reason we should not act on this. And then I kissed him.”
For Van Patten and White, 29, working together on “Tell Me Lies” has been a dream. As the “Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” actress put it, “The best part of the job is to do it with him.”
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