Jerry O’Connell says the best decision he ever made wasn’t a career move — it was falling for Rebecca Romijn.
“My wife was definitely the biggest turning point in my life,” the actor told Fox News Digital while promoting his new movie, SUMMER’S LAST RESORT, now streaming on Tubi. “I can’t believe that my wife is with me, first of all. Thank you, honey, if you’re watching this, thank you for being with me this week.”
The 52-year-old actor said meeting Romijn forced him to grow up fast. The two crossed paths in 2004 at the Maxim Hot 100 party, got engaged the following year and married in July 2007. They now raise 17-year-old twin daughters, Charlie and Dolly.
O’Connell admitted he wasn’t exactly ready for any of it: “Meeting my wife was one of the biggest turning points of my life. I was very immature. And then I met my wife, and my wife wanted to start a family…I was like, ‘It’s not going to get better than this for me, so I might as well settle down.’ And I’m so glad I did. We have two great kids, and we have a lot of fun.”
The couple previously shared that while their daughters were growing up, at least one of them was always home with them.
“No one else is ever going to raise them besides us,” Romijn said.
That same theme of family and growing up runs through SUMMER’S LAST RESORT, where O’Connell plays Glenn Winters, a free-spirited vice principal who starts dating a single mom while her skeptical teenage daughter does everything she can to sabotage the romance. As a real-life father of teenage girls himself, O’Connell said his own daughters shaped a lot of what made it onto the screen.
Related: Your Children Need Family Dinners
“It’s not one scene. I think it’s just like an aura,” he told Fox News Digital. “I live with teenage girls, my daughters, and they are eternally embarrassed by me. They can’t stand my presence. Everything I say is the wrong thing to say.”
“Anytime I did a scene with Violet, I thought, ‘Oh, what is something my daughters would not talk to me for weeks at a time for?'” he continued. “And I just did that in every scene.”
Fatherhood, O’Connell said, has taught him to loosen his grip rather than tighten it. He recalled pushing back when one of his daughters wanted to quit volleyball, then catching himself.
“I have to trust my kids — they’re pretty good kids,” he said. “I just sort of let them find their own way… I have to stop telling them what to do. That’s something that they taught me. Stop trying to control situations.”
That same willingness to let go showed up on set, where O’Connell worked alongside young co-star Violet McGraw. McGraw said watching veteran castmates like O’Connell and Sophia Bush loosen up gave her permission to do the same.
“Just by watching them, I feel like I learned so much,” McGraw said. “Basically just, you can improv, take risks and trust your instincts… just fully go for it and really commit.”
O’Connell said that kind of freedom on set took him years to find in himself. “When I was a younger actor, I was afraid to, like, go off script and like, goof around,” he said. “I think when you’re younger, you’re sort of… afraid of, like, making too much of a splash. I was just a little quieter. And when I got to set, I wanted to really loosen up for Violet.”
SUMMER’S LAST RESORT also stars Sophia Bush and Tim Rozon and is streaming now on Tubi.
O’Connell’s story is a familiar one for a lot of families: a spouse’s steady influence reordering priorities that once seemed set in stone. Nearly two decades and two kids later, he’s still crediting Romijn for the life he didn’t know he wanted — a reminder that the people who love us best are often the ones who make us grow up.
Read Next: HGTV Stars Add Adorable New Member to Their Family
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
