Before Max Greenfield became everyone’s favorite lovable weirdo Schmidt on New Girl, he was a struggling actor with future wife Tess Sanchez in his corner.
The two met at a club in Los Angeles in 2003, when he was out of work and she was just at the start of her career in casting. “We just sort of locked eyes across the room, like, ‘Why are you staring at me?’” Sanchez shared on the podcast Broad Ideas With Rachel Bilson.
Eventually, she approached him. “I was like, ‘Are you an actor?’ I’m so afraid to ask,” she recalled. “And he was like, ‘Yes.’ I was like, ‘Oh God.”
Nonetheless, sparks flew. “From that night on, we hit the ground running and never looked back.”
Keep reading to learn more about Greenfield’s marriage, including whether he and his wife have kids and if she cast him on New Girl.
Is Max Greenfield married?
Yes! Greenfield is married to former casting director Tess Sanchez, whom he met in 2003 — long before he was famous — and married in 2008.
Reflecting on the secret to their long-lasting relationship in a joint interview with Parents magazine in 2021, Sanchez said, “Max always puts me first — smartly — which makes for a happy home.”
Greenfield added, “We communicate well too. You’re better at voicing things, but I’m a great listener. If we haven’t spent enough time together, you’ll say, ‘I need to see you,’ and I’m there!”
How did Max Greenfield meet his wife, Tess Sanchez?
The pair met at a club in Los Angeles in 2003.
“My dating history at that point was [men asking], ‘Do you wanna meet out?’” Sanchez recalled on the Broad Ideas podcast. “It was never, ‘I’m gonna pick you up at this time and we’re gonna go to dinner’ — until I met him.”
Alas, his romantic gesture hit a snag when his credit card got declined on their first date. “He’s like, fumbling through [his wallet], like, ‘Try this one,’” she remembered. “And I was like, ‘This is so embarrassing.’” Still, it was certainly clear she wasn’t in it for the money.
“He was very poor for the first part of our relationship,” she said. “I was the breadwinner at that point, just because I had a steady job.”
What is Max Greenfield’s wife, Tess Sanchez, known for?
Sanchez is a longtime TV casting executive who helped shape some of the biggest shows of the last two decades. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President of Casting at Fox Entertainment, where she oversaw casting for hit series including 9-1-1, Empire, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Mindy Project. She spent 11 years with the network before being laid off amid cost cuts in 2020.
Prior to joining Fox, Sanchez worked as an independent casting director and also spent eight years at The WB as Vice President of Talent and Casting. During that time, she helped discover talent for shows like Felicity, Dawson’s Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
After her abrupt exit from Fox, Sanchez wrote about rediscovering her purpose in a 2025 book of essays called We Decided to Go in a Different Direction. Among other things, she shared how the experience affected the dynamic in her marriage.
“I never defined myself as Max’s wife, and for the first time we were going out in the world and were like, ‘Well what do you do?’ And I was like, ‘I’m his plus one,’” she explained on Broad Ideas. “And I hated it.”
“He had always been my plus one,” she continued. “From the beginning, I would walk in ahead of him and be like, ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’”
Ultimately, she shared, “I needed to back up and say, ‘I’m enough. I don’t need this job to define me.’”
In a show of support for his wife, Greenfield wrote the foreword to her book.
“My wife @tesssanchezgreenfield has written a book,” he wrote on Instagram. “Admittedly, I have not read many books so I have very little to compare it to. But in my opinion, this is the best book that’s ever been written … I will be posting about this a lot because I love Tess and this book very much.”
When did Max Greenfield and Tess Sanchez get married?
The couple got married in 2008. At the time, Greenfield was still working steadily but hadn’t yet landed New Girl, the show that would make him a household name in 2011.
“I felt like my wife and I had a really special, beautiful wedding,” Greenfield told Vulture.
“My wife and I like to compare the weddings we go to our wedding,” he added. “Usually, we win that game.”
Do Max Greenfield and his wife have kids?
Yes. The couple share two children together: daughter Lilly, born January 2010, and son Ozzie, born August 2015.
During the pandemic, Greenfield became almost as well known for making hilarious “remote learning” videos with his daughter as he is for acting. He’s also written four children’s books: I Don’t Want to Read This Book (2021), This Book Is Not a Present (2022), I Don’t Want to Read This Book Aloud (2023) and Goodnight Thoughts (2024).
“It’s such a hard thing to articulate,” he’s said of the experience of parenthood. “It just takes the focus off of you and puts it onto your children, who you love more than you would ever think you were capable of loving.”
Related: Max Greenfield Reveals What Kind of Sports Dad He Is to Teen Daughter Lilly (Exclusive)
Why did Max Greenfield and Tess Sanchez split up?
They didn’t — at least not while they were married. That said, they took a break early on in their relationship, in part due to Greenfield’s hard-partying ways. He then went into rehab for an addiction to drugs and alcohol, and has been sober since 2006.
“It was such a critical part of the story,” Sanchez told Glamour, explaining why she decided to write about it in her book. “And with our two kids now, we’ve always been very honest with them [about it]. They understand that Max doesn’t drink alcohol and what that process was like. They’re very accepting of it.”
Did Tess Sanchez cast Max Greenfield in New Girl?
Sanchez was working in the casting department of Fox, the network that aired New Girl, when Greenfield signed on to play Schmidt. But neither she nor her husband have indicated that she had anything to do with his casting on the show.
She’s certainly run lines with him over the years, including for a self-tape audition for Season 2 of The White Lotus, she revealed on Broad Ideas. (He didn’t get the part, but HBO announced a year after her podcast appearance, in March 2026, that he’s set to star in the show’s fourth season.)
“I definitely helped him [in his career],” Sanchez said on the podcast.
“[But] by helping him, I mean I recognized his potential and I motivated him and became ambitious for the both of us.”
She went on to explain that Greenfield has an “artistic mentality,” whereas she is much more “propulsive in my goals and my ambition.”
“And so I was like, ‘Hey, let me show you how to be super bossy and get what you want.’ And he did.”
Next: Meet the Star-Studded Cast of ‘The White Lotus’ Season 4
This story was originally published by Parade on May 11, 2026, where it first appeared in the Celebs section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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