Elizabeth Banks Married Her College Sweetheart. They’re Still in Love.

Summary

Modern Love Podcast Summary

Episode: Elizabeth Banks Married Her College Sweetheart. They’re Still in Love.
Host: Anna Martin
Guest: Elizabeth Banks
Air Date: April 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, host Anna Martin speaks with acclaimed actor, producer, and director Elizabeth Banks about her decades-long relationship with her husband, Max Handelman, whom she met on her first day of college. They discuss how their relationship evolved from campus soulmates to creative and business partners, the intentional decisions and sacrifices that held their marriage together through career changes, infertility, parenthood, and life’s unpredictability. Elizabeth also reads a resonant Modern Love essay about a couple who revives their marriage by attending Burning Man, and draws parallels to her own partnership, emphasizing the importance of communication, flexibility, and mutual respect.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Meeting in College and Early Impressions

• First Encounter
  • Elizabeth met her husband, Max, on the very first day of college. She recalls her initial intrigue with his confidence and intelligence.
  • Memorable exchange: Max didn’t take her phone number because he literally hadn’t set up a phone yet—setting the stage for a relationship based not on instant infatuation but repeated, organic connections.
    • Elizabeth Banks (06:53): “He basically was like, it’s not possible. I gotta go. I’m gonna go flirt with other girls now...He was cocky and confident and intelligent, and those are all very attractive things, actually.”
• Early Dates and Adult Beginnings
  • Their first memorable date was to a jazz club, where Elizabeth felt her adult life “beginning” with Max.
    • Elizabeth Banks (10:16): “It felt very like my adult life was beginning. I was leaving, really leaving childhood behind...this is what adults do.”

Relationship Evolution and Career Choices

• Long-Term Commitment
  • Elizabeth and Max’s love story wasn’t a preordained fairy tale; it grew into a life partnership over many years.
    • She describes how Max made practical sacrifices to keep them together—transferring jobs, following Elizabeth to different cities, applying to MBA programs for the sake of their partnership.
    • Elizabeth Banks (12:04): “We just kept figuring out ways to, like, grow together, stay together, do it together, stay in a partnership.”
• Intentional Conversations
  • Their commitment was renewed and made conscious at key moments, with “intense, good conversations” about staying together and supporting each other’s dreams.
  • Even after decades, Elizabeth says they continue to check in, especially as they anticipate life transitions like aging parents and empty-nesting.
    • Elizabeth Banks (14:57): “We need to really partner up and hold hands and like, batten down the hatches...we gotta, I don’t know, batten down the hatches.”

The Miniature Wife: Art Imitates Life

• Relationship Dynamics in Media and Real Life
  • Discussion of her new show, "The Miniature Wife," which centers on themes of feeling "small" in relationships—sometimes literally, as in the show, but also metaphorically.
  • Elizabeth notes the difference between her own partnership (based on mutual support) and the fictional marriage in the show (more competitive).
    • Elizabeth Banks (18:04): “A lot of couples are doing...the tally sheet. And I think if you’re doing a constant tally sheet, like, are you in a partnership?”

Working Together and Defying Conventions

• Professional Partners
  • Anna marvels at their ability to run a production company together. Elizabeth counters traditional wisdom, saying “never work with your spouse” doesn’t apply to them.
    • Elizabeth Banks (20:40): “We just work really well together...we are just there for each other to vent and we don’t take it personally.”

Keeping Marriage Fresh: Burning Man Essay

• Reflection After Reading the Essay (25:16–35:10):
  • Elizabeth reads “Making Space in Marriage, Even as the Walls Close In” by Deborah Jo Immergut, a story of rekindling connection through a transformative trip to Burning Man.
  • She relates to the essay’s theme of making sacrifices and honoring each other’s dreams, emphasizing that sometimes “a little sacrifice” is often necessary.
    • Elizabeth Banks (37:31): “I love that this couple had that check in and then figured out how to honor one of their dreams...somebody had to make a little sacrifice.”

Parenthood and Sacrifice

• Infertility and Surrogacy

  • Elizabeth opens up about her journey through fertility treatments and surrogacy—describing this as the hardest phase in their partnership.
    • Elizabeth Banks (41:45): “My husband and I had to use gestational surrogacy to have our kids...it was for sure the hardest thing that we’ve ever had to go through together.”
  • She discusses the loss and grief inherent in infertility, and how hope and mutual support helped them endure.

• Parental Teamwork and Choices

  • Each big career opportunity prompts difficult family conversations, weighing professional ambitions against family togetherness.
    • Elizabeth Banks (39:43): “To be honest, there are very few jobs that beat playing Mahjong with my 15 year old.”

On Longevity, Advice, and Growing Together

• Entering New Rooms
  • Elizabeth reflects on the metaphor (from the Modern Love essay) of relationships passing through “new rooms” as life changes—like parenthood, aging, or shifting careers.
  • Both spouses must grow individually and together, navigating evolving identities.
• Her Advice for Couples
  • Elizabeth offers blunt, practical advice for maintaining partnership:
    • Elizabeth Banks (46:02): “If you want to stay in a relationship...try not to fuck other people. That’s it. It’s like a really basic level of respect.”
  • Emphasizes daily, conscious choice: “Try to stay in it even when it’s hard because everything comes in stages and there are phases and all those things. It’s not the same every day. Every day is different.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Anna Martin (02:10): “Your work on Pitch Perfect is deeply, deeply personal to me.”
• Elizabeth Banks (06:53): “He was cocky and confident and intelligent, and those are all very attractive things…”
• Elizabeth Banks (10:16): “It felt very like my adult life was beginning.”
• Elizabeth Banks (12:04): “We just kept figuring out ways to, like, grow together, stay together, do it together…”
• Elizabeth Banks (18:04): “If you’re doing a constant tally sheet…are you in a partnership?”
• Elizabeth Banks (20:40): “We just work really well together.”
• Elizabeth Banks (37:31): “Somebody’s gotta make a little sacrifice. And then that’s typically what has to happen.”
• Elizabeth Banks (41:45): “We had to use gestational surrogacy…for sure the hardest thing that we’ve ever had to go through together.”
• Elizabeth Banks (46:02): “Try not to fuck other people. That’s it. It’s like a really basic level of respect.”

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Important Timestamps

• 03:28 – Why Elizabeth was drawn to a cappella and “Pitch Perfect”
• 05:37 – The story of meeting Max on the first day of college
• 07:50 – Their early interactions and memorable first date
• 12:04 – How they made practical decisions to keep their relationship together
• 15:52 – Comparing her marriage to the fictional couple in “The Miniature Wife”
• 18:04 – Relationship “tally sheets” and avoiding competition
• 20:40 – Working together in business and marriage
• 25:16–35:10 – Reading and discussing the Burning Man essay
• 38:16 – Sacrifices made for the sake of family and career
• 41:45 – The infertility journey and role of surrogacy
• 46:02 – Elizabeth’s unvarnished relationship advice

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Tone & Style

• The episode maintains a warm, candid, and humorous tone throughout, with Elizabeth Banks’s honesty and wit bringing levity to deeply personal stories.
• Both Anna and Elizabeth engage in thoughtful exploration of what makes a marriage last, the importance of evolving together, and the challenges that test long-term love.

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Takeaways

• Healthy relationships require constant renegotiation, empathy, and real conversations about needs, dreams, and practical challenges.
• Sacrifice and change are inevitable; what matters is how couples handle those moments together.
• Longevity in love isn’t about avoiding difficulties but about recommitting through each new phase or “room” of life.
• Sometimes the simplest, most basic advice—like mutual respect—remains the most vital.

For more, check out the Modern Love essay “Making Space in Marriage, even as the walls close in” by Deborah Jo Immergut, read aloud by Elizabeth Banks in this episode.

Transcript

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[Elizabeth Banks]

Love now.

[Modern Love Sponsor Voice]

And did you fall in love last night?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Love was stronger than anything else With a love of love and I love you more than anything. There's the love love.

[Anna Martin]

From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. And today on the show, I'm talking to actor, producer, and director Elizabeth Banks. Elizabeth starred in some of the most iconic series of my teenage years. We've got Pitch Perfect, the movies that put Acapella on the map and maybe even did the impossible, which is make Acapella cool. Also the Hunger Games, which transformed a book series I loved into a series of movies I loved even more. On screen, Elizabeth's characters are kooky. They can be brash. They're very big, which is why her new TV show, the Miniature Wife, is so intriguing to me, because her character is very small, and I mean this literally. She's tiny. She plays a woman who is shrunk down to a miniscule size by her scientist husband. It's absurd, but it tugs at a very real relationship problem. This idea that our partners can make us feel deprioritized and unimportant. That can make us feel small. Today, Elizabeth tells me how she and her husband have avoided this dynamic from their start as college sweethearts who met on the very first day of freshman year to now, after 33 years of marriage. Elizabeth Banks, welcome to Modern Love.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Thanks for having me. Hi. Hi.

[Anna Martin]

Okay, I'm going to start off this conversation by sharing something perhaps a bit vulnerable, which is, I was in an acapella group in college, and not only that, but I was the beatboxer. So I will say your work on Pitch Perfect is deeply, deeply personal to me. So thank you so much for that.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Wow. And I have a feeling, you know, Pitch Perfect helped make Acapella kind of cool. Right before that, if you were doing it and you were beatboxing, I have to say, you probably were. You were on an island with other a cappella people.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Elizabeth Banks]

And having a great time, but it's, like, akin to going to band camp, don't you?

[Anna Martin]

I was gonna say you are doing a thing where I was like, she's Insulting me upon first meeting me. But you really did turn that ship around.

[Elizabeth Banks]

You did, you know, to each his own. And you really found your people.

[Anna Martin]

It sounds like I did find my people. The beatboxing was actually sort of more out of necessity. I wasn't getting any solos, which was obviously. It was hurtful at first. And then I was like, you know what? I'm pretty loud. I can make sounds with my mouth.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Yeah.

[Anna Martin]

Can you tell me a little more about why you wanted to explore this world of acapella? Then I promise we'll move on from this. Again, sort of personal interest point of mine. But what about that world was so intriguing to you?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, I think we find any group of people who take something incredibly seriously in their own little world to be funny. Right. It's what Christopher Guest does so well in all of his comedies. A big part of it, too, is you're on this team, and you don't want to let the team down.

[Anna Martin]

I should probably reveal at this point that I was, like, not that good of a beatboxer.

[Elizabeth Banks]

So I'm like, if my a cappella

[Anna Martin]

group is listening, they're like, I mean, you did let us down.

[Elizabeth Banks]

You know, that's the great thing about when I went to school. There were no videos. There's just no evidence. Like, it just doesn't exist, you know? No one's gonna know. You can say you were fantastic. Okay. A very small group of people are gonna say you weren.

[Anna Martin]

Let's talk about your videoless college experience. Who were you in college?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Who was I in college? It's funny. I was thinking about. You were asking, you know, this is modern love. And my husband and I met my first day of college.

[Anna Martin]

Wow.

[Elizabeth Banks]

And I remember going to him and asking. I was thinking about, you know, trying to figure out, like, okay, what do I do with my extracurricular time? Like, who am I? It's kind of the exact question you're asking me. I was trying to figure that out for myself. And in the high school, I sort of was like a cheerleader, and I did the play, and I loved working, you know, musical theater, But I just was like, is that who I am in college? Am I doing musical theater, or am I gonna try to be a little more popular? You know? And I was like, I'm thinking about going out for either the play or the cheerleading team. And my husband was like, the play. Like, for sure, the play. And I thought, oh, he's so cultured. And that must be why he wants me to go out for the. And he simply Thought that if I made the cheerleading team, I would stop dating him. No, Elizabeth. Oh, my God. It was calculated. I was really worried that if I became a cheerleader, I might not keep dating him.

[Anna Martin]

You met him the first day of school. That's remarkable.

[Elizabeth Banks]

I did.

[Anna Martin]

Can you describe. I mean, first impressions? Yeah. What did you get from him? What was he like?

[Elizabeth Banks]

He was very confident.

[Anna Martin]

That's a very attractive quality.

[Elizabeth Banks]

He was very confident, clearly very intelligent. We talked a lot that first meeting. We went deep, fast. And the conversation was not small talk. It was really about many things, including, like, the environment and what he was studying and sort of like what the world was like. And, you know, it was really interesting. And then I was like, do you want my number? And he said, nah, I don't have a phone. Oh, my God. And wait, was that you, or is that another. Like, he'll tell you. He really had not. It was. This was, like, day one of school, so he had not set up his phone yet. And this was before cell phones, because I am old. And I just thought, okay, man, if you don't want my number, like, that's cool, but, you know, don't tell me you don't have a phone. Like, you can't figure out how to, like. And he literally was like, I literally don't know a number I wouldn't know. I'm like, I'm trying to give you my number. Like, I don't need your number. You call me, figure out how to. How to do it, man. And it was just like a funny.

[Anna Martin]

He's like, it's impossible. We can't do it.

[Elizabeth Banks]

He basically was like, it's not possible. I gotta go. I'm gonna go flirt with other girls now. Cause it's night one of college. And by the way, we had that Facebook. I realized, like, the real one, the one that Mark Zuckerberg based Facebook on, like, the one that is your book? Yes. It's like everyone's pictures, like, the incoming classes pictures are in a book that you, like, flip through. And I think he had looked at a couple other girls that he wanted to go try and meet that night. He was cocky and confident and intelligent, and those are all very attractive things, actually. And he was really handsome. He looked like 90210 was very popular back then. He looked like Jason Priestley. And he was very tan because it was the end of summer.

[Anna Martin]

Okay, you're painting a very intoxicating picture on the line. Well, not really, though, right? Because you tried to give him your number, and he said, Unfortunately, I don't have a phone. So what happened next? How did you end up dating?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, I was playing, you know, it wasn't like my life was ending if he didn't take my night. You know, I was like, I had. It was gonna be a fine night. I wasn't in love in two seconds, Anna. I was like, he's cute. And then I kept going with my life. And what happened was, in that first week, we met each other again and again. We just kept running into each other. And so we met up again two nights later. And he said, do you remember my name? And I said, you're Max. Do you remember my name? He said, yes. And he said, I even remember what you were wearing. Which he did. And he still does. We still both remember what we were wearing.

[Anna Martin]

Okay, well, tell what both of you were wearing.

[Elizabeth Banks]

I had on cutoff jean shorts, like Daisy Dukesies types of things. And I was wearing a Boston Red Sox cap. Cause I'm a proud Massachusetts person.

[Anna Martin]

That's cool. That is a cool ensemble. The hat really topped. And what was he wearing?

[Elizabeth Banks]

He was wearing a vest with no shirt, which he's endlessly been made fun of, and now we're doing it on a New York Times podcast. A vest with. But he. And like, jeans, which were. And he looked great.

[Anna Martin]

I mean, as you. As you kept having these crossovers, you're getting to know him more and more. What was your. What was your connection like? How did you feel around him? How did you know that this was going to be something deeper than a hookup or a fling?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, he took me on one of the best dates I've ever been on in my life. We went to. We went downtown. And, you know, I'm from the country. I'm from western Massachusetts. I grew up in, like, the biggest city in western Massachusetts, which is a factory town surrounded by farms. But I remember taking a taxi with him and we got out and he said, just give me three back, or something like that. And I thought, oh, man, that was so hot. He, like, knows how to tip the taxi driver. And he's like, it just seems so cool. Totally so adult. And then we went into this beautiful, like, underground jazz club with a singer and like a two drink minimum. And they didn't ask for id. Nobody cared. We ended up sitting, listening to this incredible singer. And we drank bourbon, and I'd never really had bourbon. And I thought, like, it felt very like my adult life was beginning. You know, I was leaving, really leaving childhood behind. Like, I knew when I got to College, I would feel that way, but I really felt that way with him. Like, wow, this is like, what. What adults do. I'm gonna have an adult relationship with this person. It's gonna be deep and intense, and we're gonna do cool things together, which we did and still do.

[Anna Martin]

Was that scary, too? Because I remember a moment where I, like, met someone, and I was like, oh, this is kind of the real deal, you know? Like, this is no longer, like, this is an adult relationship, like, you're talking about. And half of me was thrilled. Cause it's fun to grow up. And I feel like the other half of me was like, oh, my God, I really have to do this. Like, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I've never had something like this. Was there anything element of that for you?

[Elizabeth Banks]

To be honest, we were so young that I just felt like I was cool to be in love. I had been in love. I had a high school boyfriend that I loved, and I was cool. I was like, yeah, love's cool. I'd be in love with somebody. And if we break up, we break out. Like, I was not in it for the long haul. I didn't meet my husband the first day of college. I met a really great boyfriend who, over a long time, became the person that I was gonna spend the rest of my life with. Can I, like.

[Anna Martin]

As it started to get more serious, how did you two talk about the future?

[Elizabeth Banks]

I'll be honest. I came at it pretty selfishly. I applied to drama school, and I got in, and it was in San Francisco, which at the turn of the millennium was, like, the hottest place in the world to live. Cause it was Silicon Valley. And it just so happened that I was going there for grad school, and he was working in New York at that point already. And he's the one, I can say it. Wholehearte. He made the decisions to kind of keep us together because he transferred his job to San Francisco so he could come and be with me. And then when I went back to New York, he came back. And then I was like, I really don't want to ask him to leave New York again, but I think I have to go to la, and I don't know what to do. And he said, listen, I'll apply to MBA programs, I'll apply to ucla, and if I get in, we'll go. And I think that's really important. Like, we just kept figuring out ways to, like, grow together, stay together, do it together, stay in a partnership, you know, like, we kept trying to, like, build the life that we could see for each other, like, on our own terms. But I think he was completely supportive of this dream that I had that I was gonna go be an actor. You know, we were still sort of, like playing it fast and loose and like, is this really it? Because when we decided yet, really, was it? And we had that conversation in San Francisco in a bar one night where we were like, everything that's come before, who cares? Like, from here on out, are we in it? Are we doing this? Like, we're not getting married tomorrow, but, like, are we gonna keep trying to stay together? And we had a really intense, good conversation where we're like, yeah, let's do it. Like, let's not. Like we're committing, let's do it. Let's commit to each other. And since then, we have.

[Anna Martin]

Can I. And you can share as much as you want. But at the end, sometimes with these bigger conversations, in my experience, these big conversations, it's kind of hard to know when the conversation is done. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, well, there you go. How did you. Did you, like, take a shot? Did you kiss? How did you know that? Like, okay, we've decided, I'm sure, that I got laid.

[Elizabeth Banks]

I'm sure I got laid. No, you know, we definitely got a little tipsy. I remember we were a little tipsy. And you know, look, it's called truth serum for a reason, right? It was like, you know, and I think we were a little emotional, and I was gonna be leaving, you know, there was no doubt, like, I'm graduating, I'm leaving San Francisco. Like, I was not gonna stay in San Francisco, and he was gonna have to figure out how to leave as well. And so it was really just. I think there was a lot of unanswered sort of questions. And that's a lot of pressure on a 25 year old. Like, I think all of that was brewing and came out in this moment of like, let's commit, let's get into a partnership agreement. You know, we're not signing any papers, but let's say these things out loud to each other so we know, so we can hold each other to it.

[Anna Martin]

It sounds like there were still so many. I mean, you know, you had no idea. Of course, no one ever does what was in the future. But it sounds at that moment you were like, I'm committed to. To you and to going into this future, this unknown with you. Is that how it felt?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Absolutely. And I just had that a Similar conversation. Now it's 30. Gosh. How many years into this are we? 33 years into it. I just, you know, after my birthday last month had like a. Okay, so the next five years, like, it's gonna, you know, we're gonna have a lot of. I'm preparing for a lot of loss. I am very lucky. I have both my parents right now. But that luck, just time is gonna, you know, it's gonna take them. My kids are gonna leave home because that's what my job as a parent is, is to make sure they can go live their own lives. So I'll be sending them off. And I just was like, wow, I know what the next five years looks like. And it's. There's gonna be a lot of loss in our life. And so we need to really partner up and hold hands and like, we gotta get, we gotta, we gotta, I don't know, batten down the hatches, you

[Anna Martin]

know, I mean, it sounds like the foundation in a lot of ways of your relationship, your marriage with your husband. Are these conversations quite difficult conversations about what the next steps are, you know, planning on the future together, making decisions together. This to me is a big contrast from the marriage we see in your new show, the Miniature Wife. I'm gonna set the scene a bit. You play Lyndy, a Pulitzer Prize winning author who has lots of success in her career in New York. She's married to a scientist played by Matthew McFaddy, who moved their family to the Midwest to work on his top secret formula. If you were in Lindy's shoes, how would you react to that move?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, I mean, similarly, I think to my husband and I moving across the country for each other is like, she in the show has to find her own reason to go. And so she goes and becomes a professor at the, you know, wash U in St. Louis where they're gonna live. But she thinks it's very temporary. The thing that goes wrong for them is they, I think, have a plan and they do talk about it and they do create sort of a. A partnership and how they're gonna do something, it's just the way they do it is so messed up. And then it goes sideways because one of them's, you know, they're like, well, he's gonna support me while I do one thing, but then I'm gonna take time away from my career and support him while he does his thing. And then his thing is like a 20 year time horizon. And she's like, whoa, this is taking way long. I'd like, to get back to my thing. And he's like, no, no, no, I need you to support me so I can do my thing and that. So the two of them just have had. They have a much less healthy idea of what it is to be in a supportive relationship. They're not each allowing the other to do their own thing and like come together on it. They're not really in a partnership, they're in a competition. And I see a lot of couples in competition with each other. A lot of couples.

[Anna Martin]

Really?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Yeah, I think a lot of couples are doing. They're doing the checking, you know. Well, I did this and you did this and what did you do? And I did this and I did this and what did you do? Well, I take a tally sheet. Tally sheet. And I think if you're doing a constant tally sheet, like, are you in a partnership? Like, are you like checking the. Like, do you have the same list that you're both checking stuff off of or do you have two separate lists?

[Anna Martin]

Great question.

[Elizabeth Banks]

You know, it's like it has to be negotiated in a healthy way.

[Anna Martin]

I think it seems like you and your husband have really sort of worked out. I'm not saying it's smooth sailing all the time, of course, no relationship is. But it seems like you've worked out a system. I don't know what you want to call it. You've worked out this dynamic where you don't have that kind of competition, you don't have that tension. And I want to really, because I think, you know, like, again I said I admire it and I really want to know what that means in practice. How did you arrive at that place? Is it like you have bi weekly check ins? Like, what's the. Is there a secret?

[Elizabeth Banks]

So the re. My husband and I work together, we are partners in a production company and we do all truly are 95 of our work. Life outside of the acting, I should say, we really try to do in some sort of partnership. And honestly, it was completely practical. What became apparent was I was gonna be traveling all the time for the work that I was doing. It was already happening. And so living in la, being together was like he was graduating from business school and he was looking at jobs that were like, you know, you get two weeks off and, you know, maybe you get a vacation in the summer and, you know, you gotta work, you know, nine to nine every day if you want to get ahead. And it was like, I'm never gonna see this guy. And we've made all these decisions to bring our lives together so that we can make a life together and have a family together and be each other's family. And suddenly it looked like it wasn't gonna happen. And yeah, it started from there. It was really practical. It was like, how do we spend the time we wanna spend together and not have me always be away? And we just figured we should do it. We should just like do it together, see how it goes. And it's gone pretty well.

[Anna Martin]

It's really sweet because I feel like it kind of flouts the conventional wisdom, which is like, never, ever, ever work with your significant other. And in fact, you found that the way to spend the time that you wanted with your significant other was to work with them. It's like you've really kind of flipped the script here in a way that seems to have really worked for you guys.

[Elizabeth Banks]

We just work really well together. There are people all the time that say to us, you work with your husband. And honestly, it comes very naturally. We are just there for each other to like, vent and we don't take it personally. And the business is like what it is. And it's hard. It's really hard work. But we have been able to build a lot of really cool things together.

[Anna Martin]

Stay with us.

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[Anna Martin]

Okay. Elizabeth, we have been talking about how to keep keep a marriage working as you both grow and change over the years. And the modern love essay you chose to read today is about a couple who finds a very interesting way to tackle that problem. They go to Burning man together. Why did you choose this essay?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, interestingly, I actually know Several middle aged 25 years in people who have gone to Burning man kind of for the same reason. Gosh, we've been doing this a long time. Like how do we keep it spicy? Or one of them always wanted to go and you know, I find it fat. Like if I could transport there and then immediately transport out when I wanted to, then yes, I would. 100% it's something I would want to take in. But the whole notion of the buildup to it and the getting there and the getting out of it and the whole thing, I'm like, I don't. It's not for me.

[Anna Martin]

I completely agree. But all respect. Hey, what about those friends that went to spice up their relationship? Did it work?

[Elizabeth Banks]

It kind of did. It did help them. And that's also why I thought this was a really interesting notion. And I also think there's so much in the zeitgeist right now about menopausal women just not having any fucks left to give to their relationships. And I don't wanna deny that feeling because it exists. We're changing. And I read this beautiful thing that was like the way to stay in love is you don't love the same the person that changes and you keep learning them and learning how to love them over time because we do change. And I for sure, as I said, My 52nd birthday was like a moment where I was like, wow, this next little bit is gonna be hard. And I just wanted to check in with my partner and say like, you got, like we got this right? Because this isn't gonna be easy for us. So you gotta hold on to the people that are propping you up because we really need each other right now. Sometimes you go to Burning man and sometimes that's it. And sometimes that person wants to go to Burning man and you got to go because that's what they need.

[Anna Martin]

That's what marriage is.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Maybe.

[Anna Martin]

Okay, I can't wait to hear you read this essay. This essay is from a few years back, but I think it's still really resonant. Excited to hear you read it. Whenever you're ready.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Making Space in Marriage, even as the walls close in By Deborah Jo Immergut it was a week before our 25th anniversary and I wanted out. John and I were sitting in a tent pavilion as women in tiny thongs, platform boots, and pasties snaked past us in a line for free ice cream, their behinds nearly grazing our noses. I glanced at my husband. He looked on affably, as if trying to channel Fred Rogers, and even though I had been crying most of the day, I had to smile. We were halfway through our virgin trip to Burning man, the temporary metropolis that rises in the remote Nevada desert each summer. Taking part had long been John's dream and my nightmare, but now that equation had been turned on its head and this voyage had become the inflection point of our marriage. Eight days that would save it or destroy it. We had spent four nights camped out among dust devils, non stop electronic music, and some 70,000 utopia seekers, most of them closer to our son's age than ours. We had four nights to go. John first began lobbying for us to go more than two decades earlier. As a reporter, he had traveled to Nevada's Black Rock Desert, the famed Playa, to interview the event's founder, Larry Harvey. John fell in love with the Landsc, a flat white vastness rimmed by mountains, and was impressed by Harvey, who started this annual crucible of creativity when he built a wooden man and then torched it, a ritual he hoped would help him heal from a broken heart. My husband is a shaggy haired, polite Texan with a thirst for wide open spaces. He became convinced that seeing a massive artwork burn in the desert amid throngs of revelers was something he needed to do, and he wanted to do it it with me. As each year's late summer burn took place, he would sigh and say, someday we're going. Every time I would sigh and say, no way. To me, an east coast skeptic with a delicate digestion, it seemed a hellscape of extroversion, New Age art, and portable toilets. Besides, our life together was already plenty adventurous. We had fallen in love as students amid the cornfields and dive bars of an Iowa college town, moved to Washington, D.C. spent five years in Europe, then relocated to New York, where our son was born. Fifteen years ago we left the city for a small Massachusetts town. Every so often John would bring up Burning man, saying, but you'd like it? Naked people tripping in the desert. I'd say you'd like it. Not me. Then our son, our only child chose a university thousands of miles away. Menopause swept over me like a lightning storm. I'm not talking about hot flashes. I felt lit up. The comforts of cozy domesticity seemed diminished. I had freedom and space. I craved more. I noticed there were men beyond my husband and son and that they were noticing me. It was confusing and exhilarating. Over a Sunday lunch, I told John that I needed to crack a window. I found pressure building. You want to have an affair? He said grimly. Just some breathing room. A little give so the whole thing doesn't break apart. It felt like the hardest conversation of our marriage and ended in a bit of a stalemate. The outlines of our new Deal, if that's what it was, were vague. He said he would try to give me space but needed to trust that I wouldn't hurt him. Him. I won't, I said. You can have space, too. He shook his head. I don't want it. I had no desire to hurt John or myself. I longed for our connection to be recharged, but instead it wobbled. John seemed angry and sad. I felt distracted, drifting. Some days I felt real danger, as if I might actually just drift away. That dark part of me wanted to see it happen. It scared me. Two years ago, as our 25th anniversary loomed, it dawned on me. Bold action was required. No nice dinner or overnight at a quiet inn. We need new material, I told John. We need to do something seriously out of our comfort zone. Burning man, he said. Eek, I said. He found us tickets. I tried to imagine using oversubscribed portable toilets for eight days. He wanted uncomfortable, he said. Not that uncomfortable. He rented us an RV with a bathroom. When I told a friend about the plan, she said, when I hear Burning Man, I think sand in vagina. Another told of a friend who had lost his wife there. Two days later, she straggled back to their camp, announced she had met her soulmate in a meditation circle, and left in the other guy's car. In the weeks that followed, we both waffled right up until we either had to confirm the RV or lose our big deposit. John lay awake all night. I mean, this was all his idea. What if it broke us up? What about those meditation circles? I woke with a thought. I had asked for freedom in space, and he had offered an anarchic party in an endless desert. How could I not take him up on it? Let's go for it. I said I was going to cancel. Then he shrugged. But you know how long I've wanted this. We rushed to gather supplies. Solar lamps, dust masks, tarps, also tutus and fantastic hats. In Las Vegas, we loaded the RV with 36 gallons of water. Avocados for me, beef jerky for a John. The scale of the Burning man encampment was vaster than I had imagined. We ended up parking our rig amid a little village of fellow outliers, including a Nevada state trooper and his wife and two 20something nurses from Alaska. During the day, John and I would bike lazily through the heat or shelter under our jury rigged tarp. At night we garlanded our bodies with rainbow LEDs and zoomed past glowing art installations. We danced and down countless free cocktails, surrounded by flesh, naked or nearly shimming on top of cars that had been transformed in cathedrals and spaceships or lined up at the horrifying potties. On the morning of the fourth day, with four to go, I dissolved into a mess of dust, sweat and tears. I cried in our hot trailer, filled with with doubts about this dubious, desperate undertaking, about our relationship, about everything. Whatever I was missing, it wasn't here. I wanted to leave. If you want to go, we'll go, john said, holding me tightly. He needed the catharsis of seeing the man burn. Somehow I understood this. I took a deep breath and dried my dirty face on his shirt. By that afternoon, as we ate ice cream among the throng clad beauties, I regained my mojo. Later a veteran burner told me, everyone cries. On the fourth day, we stayed to see the man collapse into flames. And then for the final act, the incineration of a huge wooden temple. As the hordes watched in odd silence, John seemed to float through these climactic moments in extreme happiness. And it wasn't drugs. He was as straight as a yardstick. Watching him, I realized that I was happy too. Not only had we made it through, we had entered the next room of our marriage. I had asked him to crack a window as a possible escape route, but the opening had instead let in oxygen. We had created for ourselves a bigger space. It felt exciting to think about exploring it together. How deeply did we get into the spirit of that bacchanal? Let's just say that one evening out on the fringe of the encampment, there was dancing two bare skinned bodies casting long shadows across the flats as if pointing toward the future. Two years later, we're experiencing the opposite of Burning man. Hunkered with our son in our old New England house as the pandemic sweeps the globe. Yet I think we internalized enough of that wide open space to know the need for psychic distance in our marriage, and we're better at maintaining it while still sharing love and support during a frightening time. The year we burned feels like it happened in another eon, but its lesson stuck and is maybe even more relevant now. It takes fresh air to feed a fire.

[Anna Martin]

We'll be right back.

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[Anna Martin]

What are some immediate thoughts while that's still burning in your brain?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, I love that it brings to mind these great conversations that you have to have with a partner about like where are we and where are we going and what's ahead for us and how do we get there and do we do it together and you know, all those big questions and check ins that you have to have. And I love that this couple had that check in and then figured out how to honor one of their dreams, you know, and somebody had to make a little Sacrifice. And then that's typically what has to happen. Somebody's gotta make a little sacrifice.

[Anna Martin]

Both you and your husband have had to make sacrifices. I wonder if you can share like a. A moment of that or a stage in your relationship where either you had to make a sacrifice or he did for the good of the relationship, for the sake of the relationship.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Every time a big job comes up that takes me out of town, we have to have a conversation like this. So we have them all the time, actually. Right. Because, you know, I got really good advice as a young mom when I was parenting my little toddlers and trying to go to set and do it all. And I remember someone saying to me, like, you think you need to be there when they're three, but really make sure you're there when they're 13, because they need that. 13. I mean, we all remember 13. It's the worst. It's the hardest. It's the worst. And it's also when you're getting wired to be a human, you know, in a real way, they're contemplating really big things and the consequences of their decisions are so much greater. And so I now have a 13 and a 15 year old, and I really. I'm addicted to them and I love hanging out with them and I love being around them. So it's become, you know, really important, I think, for our family to recognize how little time we have together, the four of us together. And so every time I get a big job now, it's like, well, what is the sac is what's the sacrifice? And, you know, and what do we need? It's been a really interesting series of conversations over the last few years.

[Anna Martin]

It feels like a really tough decision to make. Have you turned. Have you turned down a deal?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Well, it isn't, because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, you almost. I mean, to be honest, like, there are very few jobs that beat playing Mahjong with my 15 year old.

[Anna Martin]

Wow, y' all are mahjong family. I like hearing that.

[Elizabeth Banks]

And we are a mahjong family. Yes.

[Anna Martin]

You know, in the. In the essay you just read, the author uses this metaphor that I really love. She says when she realizes she's happy with her husband again, she says it's like their relationship or it's like they have entered a new room.

[Elizabeth Banks]

A new room?

[Anna Martin]

Yeah, a new room. And we're talking about your two kids. Did parenthood feel like entering a new room for you and your husband?

[Elizabeth Banks]

Of course. I think it is. For. I mean, there's no preparing. It doesn't matter who you are, what, you know, I mean, I grew up surrounded by little kids and I babysat my little siblings and, you know, I'm very comfortable with babies and I'm a pretty confident mom, but it just doesn't matter because you don't know what you're gonna get. You know, there's just like, they're just a vector of factors that, you know, drops into your life and you're like, yeah, I mean, of course, it's a whole other room. I mean, it's a room for both people too, because it's an expansion of who you are both individually. You know, like, my husband is my husband. He's also a father to my sons. He's not my father. Right. He's their father. Like, he has to figure out how to be a father and I have to figure out how to be a mother, and then we have to be parents together. But those are three different identities, you know?

[Anna Martin]

You know, you're speaking about wanting to. You and your husband being on the same page that you wanted a family. You've talked before about having kids through surrogacy. And I wonder if you could share, however much you wanna share about what that process was like for you too.

[Elizabeth Banks]

That's a big question.

[Anna Martin]

I know, I know.

[Elizabeth Banks]

No, it's no secret. My husband and I had to use gestational surrogacy to have our kids, which basically means we make a baby cake and then we bake it in another woman's oven. So I just was. I've never been pregnant. Which is. And it's funny because when we were having trouble getting pregnant, the very first thing that the fertility doctor asked me was, have you ever been pregnant? And I thought, what a weird question. And he said, well, not really. I mean, you've been. When did you start having sex? And I was like 15 and a half or something, 16. And he's like, well, so in the 20 years you've been having sex, like, you never had a scare. And you're like, right, wow. Yeah, like, women get pregnant, you know, when they have sex for 20 years on pretty consistently. And so it was my first wake up call of like, huh, yeah, maybe something's not totally right here. And he told me in that very first meeting, he was like, I think surrogacy is going to be for you, but we can go through IVF and do all the things. And we did, I did. We undertook nine procedures to have our two sons. But I will say this, it was for My husband and I, who feel pretty lucky in our relationship that we found each other and that we were able to build this life together. It was for sure the hardest thing that we've ever had to go through together.

[Anna Martin]

I imagine we've been speaking about the conversations that you and your husband have had really since the beginning of your relationship. And I imagine there must have been, I mean, that conversation where you're grappling with the possibility that you might not have the family you always pictured in your future. I mean, that feels like a deeply painful and difficult conversation that you two navigate together.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, there's, it's, it's a loss. So I, I, I really tell people that are going through infertility. You are, you're mourning, you know, this like, basic thing that you've been told your body can do and then suddenly it's not going to do it. And you're not just mourning like, oh, my body doesn't work. You're like, oh, it's not going to, I'm not going to have a baby. I've never, you know, I never got to sing to my baby in my belly. So those, like, little things that you think are going to just come very naturally are suddenly not going to be yours. I think the main thing was we kept holding out hope. We did not have, we had moments of hopelessness, but we had each other and it was accepting that we needed that help. That was, you know, I don't, I, we didn't get to that happily. Right. We didn't get to that, like, yay, we can't wait. We got to that through mourning and then found somebody who really saw it as the gift that we needed in that moment. And it was great.

[Anna Martin]

In another interview, you called your relationship with your husband the thing that you're the most proud of. I mean, I feel like I've sort of asked you this question in various disguises throughout this conversation, but can you just sort of tell me how does a couple get to that point?

[Elizabeth Banks]

I don't know. I don't have any. I've only been in this one relationship and I've never done, you know, I'm 52, so I've never done 53 in a relationship. I've never done, I've Never had a 16 year old before before. Right. Like, I'm new to a lot. I think you gotta acknowledge, like, I'm just, I'm just trying to be kind and open and loving and accepting and all of the things that I want in that I want to be that I want from someone else. And. And so I don't know. I have no answers. I really don't.

[Anna Martin]

I feel like you know some stuff and you've shared some stuff over this con. I will say, even if you say you don't know right now, I'm like, I'm going to listen back to this. I think I'm going to get a lot of.

[Elizabeth Banks]

I give people really frank, what I consider solid advice, which is if you want to stay in a relationship. And I think Deborah Jo was worried about this when in her making space in marriage, even as the walls close in, the main thing I tell people is try not to fuck other people. That's it. It's like a really basic level of respect.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah. That's a big one. Unless, let's say this, it's an open relationship, in which case the terms could be different.

[Elizabeth Banks]

Yeah. Figure it out. Or like, or you're at Burning man and you know, everything's just flowing and it feels really great, like, okay, I mean, do what you gotta do. Do what you gotta do. But at the end of the day, I find that actually is the advice that people don't wanna acknowledge is just like the truest advice. I mean, just try to stay in it even when it's hard because everything comes in stages and there's phases and all of those things. It's not the same every day. Every day is different.

[Anna Martin]

Elizabeth Banks, thank you so much for this conversation.

[Elizabeth Banks]

I so enjoyed it. Thank you.

[Anna Martin]

If you want to read Deborah Jo Immergut's Modern Love essay that we talked about in today's episode, we'll have the link in our show notes. The Modern Love team is Davis Land, Elisa Gutierrez, Lynn Levy, Emily Lang, Amy Pearl, Reva Goldberg and Sarah Curtis. This episode was produced by Emily Lang and Elisa Gutierrez. It was edited by Lynn Levy. Our mix engineer was Daniel Ramirez. Original music in this episode by Alicia Be Itupe, Rowan Nimisto, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker and Dan Powell. Dan also composed our theme music. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones and Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you'd like to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we have the instructions in our show Notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.

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