This weekend, while Tenet headed to theaters and Mulan headed to Disney+, Netflix also added a totally different flick: the rom-com Love, Guaranteed starring Damon Wayans Jr and Rachael Leigh Cook. In real life, both romantic onscreen leads have had their own meet cutes of sorts, though to hear Wayans Jr. tell it, meeting his wife was more of a comedy bit than something straight out of a romantic movie.
Some minor spoilers can be found in this paragraph! In Love, Guaranteed, Susan and Nick meet over a cup of coffee as he ardently feels the need to inform her that pumpkins spice does not, in fact, feature real pumpkin. They continue an awkward walk to an office building where it becomes clear Nick is actually there to meet Susan, his lawyer, as he has plans to sue a dating website that “guarantees love.” Needless to say, that’s not remotely similar to the story of how Damon Wayans Jr met his wife. In a recent interview he detailed:
I met my wife at this random dinner in Miami. It was like me, her, a bunch of her friends, a bunch of my family. We didn’t really click that night. We talked a little bit, but they were trying to set me up with her cousin and me and her didn’t really get along either. Not in a bad way, just different kind of people. The next night I go to this party, she’s at the party. She’s like, ‘Damon, hey.’ I walk up to her to go give her a hug and she knees me in the balls. Then I backhand her in the vagina [lightly] and she laughed. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this girl’s a psycho.’ We’ve been growing strong ever since.
Speaking to the OtherScottM’s Scott Menzel, Damon Wayans Jr. spoke out about how he met his wife whilst being setup with another woman and how she totally threw him off with her sense of humor. It’s a story he apparently tells fairly often, as Rachael Leigh Cook also mentioned she was familiar with the tale, though she was so amused her eyes got a little teary. I guess that means it holds up upon second listening.
To clarify, Damon Wayans Jr. also noted his now-wife “did it to be funny,” though Rachael Leigh Cook also noted the “takeaway” should be: “Don’t take any dating advice from Damon.”
That’s a little true of his character in Love, Guaranteed, too as Nick Evans is a man who was unlucky in love – and spoilers again – was left by his fiancé, who had also been cheating on him for months. This is what prompted him to join the dating service in the first place, which ultimately led to him getting burned over and over again. He meets a lot of nice women, but none of them are a good love connection until he starts spending more time with Susan.
Sometimes you meet people in the unlikeliest of places at the unlikeliest of times. That’s what Love, Guaranteed seems to be telling us, and that seems to be Damon Wayans Jr.’s experience as well. Love, Guaranteed is currently on Netflix streaming and at the time of this writing is currently in the subscription streamer’s Top 10. To see what else may have a shot at landing on that coveted list, take a look at what's coming to the streamer this month.
