Sometimes, I'll be watching TV with my husband and an innocuous little car commercial comes on and he has to hear me yell - "Hey! I made out with that guy!"

My poor husband.

It's true that people tend to hook up on film sets. Shoots tend to be intense situations and people get very close, very fast. But to me, it never felt like a hook up. It always felt like LOVE.

This version of love only lasts for the duration of the project, yet has all the attributes of actual love. I think I fell in love with someone from the cast or crew on almost every project I was in. If the shoot was long, I might have fallen in love with two someones.

As an actor, throwing yourself into an on-set relationship is a way to feel like yourself when you spend 15 hours a day becoming someone else. It is the most basic way to keep a handle on your humanity. To give and receive love reminds you that even though you are doing something that seems so strange and fascinating to the rest of the world — you love just like everyone else. Your heart leaps when they walk in the room and you cry when they don’t call.

It’s simple. It’s normal. And sometimes, normal is the thing you need most.

Then, inevitably, when a show wrap is called and the set is broken down, the love flies into the stage lights like a moth and dies in a puff of smoke. Quickly and cleanly.

But it gets awkward, decades later, when you see that guy on a car commercial and you realize that you can only remember the name of his character, not his real name.

Let me say again: my poor husband. Most men don't have to see their wives' ex-boyfriends parade through the living room during commercial breaks while watching the NCAA championships.

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