Jennifer Love Hewitt is relishing a recent milestone.

On Nov. 21, the 9-1-1 actress, 45, and her husband, actor Brian Hallisay, celebrated 11 years of marriage.

“That’s like 190 years in Hollywood,” Hewitt jokes in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. “I’m really proud of the family we’ve made together. I’m proud of us.”

Though they first met on the set of Love Bites in 2011, Hewitt and Hallisay, 46, didn’t start dating until a year later, when they reunited on the set of the Lifetime series The Client List in 2012.

“I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life,” Hewitt recalls. “I said to my manager and friend at the time: ‘I’m going to marry that man, and I’m going to have his children.’ She said, ‘Sweetheart, I think everybody thinks they’re going to marry that man and have his children.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but I’m going to do it. Just watch.'”

While it was love at first sight for Hewitt, she says it was more of a “slow burn” for Hallisay.

“I don’t know that it was instant for him,” she says. “But it was instant for me, and it wasn’t just what he looked like. He was kind and he was good and close with his family and he was smart. We just had fun, and I was smitten. I got lucky enough to end up with him. And guess what? I did marry him, and I did have his kids.”

Five days before their daughter Autumn’s arrival in 2013, Hewitt and Hallisay got married in the backyard of their home in Los Angeles. When they moved houses in 2020, they decided to have another backyard wedding at their new abode, and this time their daughter and their son Atticus, now 9, got to serve as witnesses.

“It was very sweet, and it was so great for our kids to be there and have that as a memory,” Hewitt says. “They talk about it all the time, which I love. It was during [the height of] COVID, so we were just grasping for magic at that time. It really did become a magical time for us.”

In 2021, the couple welcomed their youngest son, Aidan, 3.

“We, I think, struggle like most parents with three kids and full-time jobs and all of the things to find our time, but I really do wake up and choose Brian every day, and I would choose him every time,” Hewitt says. “I genuinely feel that way, even when he makes me crazy. And he continues to choose me, thank God. I am always so profoundly happy that my kids are half him.”

Hewitt and Hallisay got to fall in love all over again while starring together in the new Lifetime Christmas movie The Holiday Junkie, premiering Dec. 14. It was inspired by the actress’ love of the holidays and her journey with the grief of losing her mom, Pat, at 67 in 2012.

“It was really fun to be in a movie honoring my mom with Brian because he does such a great job of honoring her in our life, even though he only met her once,” Hewitt says. “So it was special having him there. It’s like our little Christmas love letter that we’ll always have.”

Hewitt is also excited to share her mom’s story in her new book Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical.

“Now, having written the book and doing the movie, I feel so much closer to her in some weird way because I feel like she is watching and knows that she’s being celebrated on such a big level,” she says. “I’m really grateful for that, and it’s really put the grief in a new place.”

The Holiday Junkie premieres on Saturday, Dec. 14 a 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

Source: People

What a way to ring in Friday the 13th! Jennifer Love Hewitt has officially joined the reboot of “I Know What You Did Last Summer!” She will be returning as Julie James! The film is scheduled to be released July 18, 2025 and production is currently underway.

Jennifer Love Hewitt has been a part of hit TV shows like “Party of Five,” “The Client List,” and “The Ghost Whisperer,” as well as blockbuster films such as “Can’t Hardly Wait,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” just to name a few. With her new Christmas rom-com, “The Holiday Junkie” (premiering Dec. 14, 8/7c on Lifetime), she adds writer and feature director to her credits. She is also the author of a touching new memoir, “Inheriting Magic” (available December 10). Jennifer talks about her own magical holiday traditions, coping with the loss of her mother, and making a movie with both her husband, Brian Hallisay, and her children.

For her new Lifetime Christmas movie The Holiday Junkie, Jennifer Love Hewitt enlisted her husband Brian Hallisay to play her onscreen love interest — and when the actress told their 11-year-old daughter Autumn about the plans, she was met with an unexpectedly hilarious reaction.

“The first thing she said was, ‘Mommy is he going to be nice to you this time?'” Hewitt, 45, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday. “I was like, ‘Yes, sweetie, it’s a Christmas miracle. He’s playing a kind character to me.'”

Hallisay, 46, indeed has a history of playing the bad guy in Hewitt’s TV worlds: from 2012-2013, he played her estranged husband on the Lifetime series The Client List, and in the TV drama 9-1-1 he plays her character Maddie Han’s abusive ex-husband.

“On The Client List, obviously he wasn’t kind, and then in 9-1-1, for sure, not kind,” she says. “So it was really funny. My daughter was super psyched that daddy was going to be nice to me on screen.”

The movie, premiering Dec. 14, also features all three of the couple’s kids: Autumn, Atticus, 9, and Aidan, 3. It was inspired by Hewitt’s journey with grief after losing her mom Pat to cancer at 67 in 2012, and how she declared herself a “holiday junkie” in 2013 when she started leaning into the joy of the season to cope.

“It was really fun to be in a movie honoring my mom with Brian because he does such a great job of honoring her in our life, even though he only met her once,” Hewitt says. “So it was special having him there. I’m really proud to be one of very few grief Christmas movies out there for people who feel things other than just joy at Christmas.”

Just like her new film, Hewitt channeled her journey with grief into her book Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical, which also offers tips for making the everyday feel special.

“If you had asked me when my mom was still on the planet if I could live without her, I would’ve said no,” Hewitt says. “So I’m really proud of myself for the way that I handled grief after writing the book.”

To have both projects come out in the same week is “wild,” Hewitt says. “I feel like it’s my mother up in the sky going, ‘Okay, let’s make this work, guys.’ It’s a very ‘her’ thing to do.”

“Now, having written the book and doing the movie, I feel so much closer to her in some weird way because I feel like she is watching and knows that she’s being celebrated on such a big level,” she continues. “I had a good cry about her a couple of days ago, just missing her and wishing that she was here to see all this actually happen, but the grief is in a better place now.”

As she looks forward to 2025, Hewitt is following new dreams, including expanding “Holiday Junkie” into a full-blown brand. She’s also eyeing a return in the upcoming I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot. (She starred as final girl Julie James in the original 1997 film.)

“I’d love to say that I finally signed on to I Know What You Did Last Summer, but I can’t yet,” she says. “It’s been complicated because of my 9-1-1 schedule. I’m going to manifest that.”

In the meantime, she’s taking stock of everything she worked for over the past year.

“When I sat down with my vision board for 2024, this is what I wanted,” she says. “I wanted all of these things to happen. I’m able to be a mom and able to be this person that people have known me as for a long time, but shifting it into a way that they both come together. So I’m feeling very excited and super grateful.”

The Holiday Junkie premieres on Saturday, Dec. 14 a 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

Source: People

Jennifer Love Hewitt joins Jennifer Hudson and shares behind-the-scenes details about her new Christmas movie, “The Holiday Junkie,” and reveals how her family celebrates the season with heartwarming traditions. Plus, don’t miss what she has to say about the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” sequel!

Jennifer Love Hewitt will be launching her new book, “Inheriting Magic,” on HSN at 11:00 am (ET)/8:00 am (PT) tomorrow, December 10th! Love will be on the network for hour and 5 lucky purchasers can win a signed copy of the book.

Jennifer Love Hewitt is addressing rumors of her return to the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot.

The actress stopped by the I’ve Never Said This Before With Tommy DiDario podcast for its episode dropping on Tuesday. While speaking with the host, she seemingly gave a hint about potentially reprising her role of Julie James for the upcoming sequel, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

“I am possibly preparing for that,” Hewitt confessed in a clip from the episode exclusively obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “I am so close to being able to say something that’s exciting.”

Hewitt later went into greater detail about the idea of possibly returning to the franchise, which shot her to fame as a teen star after starring in the original 1997 film. “It has only been scheduling and me trying to make sure that if I go back to the franchise, I just don’t want to be the ghost of ’90s past,” Hewitt said. “I really want to do something, and I want to be there for Julie James fans. … I just want it to feel like, you know, if she comes back then it means something.”

She went on to tentatively confirm that Julie is written into the reboot script, signaling that it’s only a matter of whether she will be the one portraying the character.

Hewitt noted that she was incredibly honored to still be considered for the role, even 27 years after the original film premiered. Hewitt portrayed Julie in I Know What You Did Last Summer, alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Ryan Phillippe. She also reprised her role in the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. THR previously reported that she was in talks to return to her role once again for the reboot.

The 1997 slasher film centered on a group of young adults who accidentally murder somebody, then cover it up and form a pact to never tell anyone about it. A year later, the group is then stalked by somebody who is murdering them for what they did.

DiDario later brought up the idea of making a new song to accompany the upcoming film, however, Hewitt already had a suggestion. “I’m working on that too, we’ll see,” she said.

Prinze, who also reprised his role in the 1998 sequel, is set to return for the upcoming reboot. Gellar previously said she would be part of the new sequel in an “unofficial” capacity. DiDario also asked Hewitt if there were any talks of Brandy Norwood, the acclaimed singer and actress who joined the cast for the 1998 sequel, returning as well.

“I have heard that. Yes, I have,” Hewitt responded before joking that she had to go back and rewatch the movies to remember who actually died. “My first thought was, ‘We have to have Jack Black,’ and then I was like, ‘Oh no, he died,’” Hewitt added. Black appeared in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, but his character gets stabbed through the chest with a gardening tool by the killer.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Hewitt addressed past rumors that she and Gellar had an on-set feud during filming for the 1997 movie, which claimed that Hewitt was changing the script so Gellar’s character was definitively killed off.

“I was 18. They were not taking script notes from me,” the actress explained. “All of us were in that experience together, you know, figuring it all out and everything. And I root for her and Freddie. I think it’s the cutest thing in the world that they’ve been married for 100 years and have kids. It’s like adorable. So it’s just been really funny to see all of this stuff.”

The I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot is currently set for a summer 2025 release.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter