The Greatest Love

Between lingering kisses and adoring sidelong glances, artist-turned-filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson and her dashing actor husband, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, open up to friend James Frey (whose book A Million Little Pieces they have adapted for the big screen) about the coup de foudre they experienced when they first met—and how they keep that spark burning bright more than a decade later.

-  James Frey

She was a world-renowned artist, her work hanging in museums around the world, selling for outrageous sums in galleries and at auction, the mother of two young daughters living in London and spending weekends in France or the English countryside. She had also survived cancer twice. She was healthy, brilliant, beautiful, and successful beyond her wildest dreams. She was about to direct her first feature film. Her life was full. Or so she thought.

“I wasn’t expecting anything that day. Just to see a bunch of actors pretending to be John Lennon.”

He was an actor, working since he was six. He’d been onstage, in films, on television, successful enough to get by, but the breakthrough hadn’t come. He’s been preparing for this audition for six weeks. If he got the role, it would change his life,

“I remember it very, very clearly. I know exactly what she was wearing. This white shirt that she still has, that I love. It definitely changed my life, though not in the way I expected.”

“We were very professional through the entire film.”

“No funny business at all.”

“But everyone on set knew. And as soon as we finished, he told me he was going to marry me. We had never been on a date, or even kissed.”

“And a year to the minute after we met, exactly one year to the minute, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.”

“In the 10 years we’ve been together, we’ve only been apart for maybe two or three days.”

“And those were the worst days of those 10 years.”