You always hear about couples who do everything together. While it sounds nice to have more moments in the day to spend with your spouse, many of us married folks are probably wondering, how that works without going at each other’s throats.
Well, these Hollywood newlyweds appear to have it down packed. Of course, Why Did I Get Married star and mixed martial artist Michael Jai White pretty much lives in the gym—I’m mean you must have to in order to maintain his action hero physique. So if you’re married to him, you’ll likely be a fitness buff yourself.
Fortunately, actress and model Gillian Iliana Waters, his wife of 10-months, is also a fitness enthusiast. And while you might suspect competition and one-upmanship in a couple who share similar interests, it’s actually the opposite. Waters says she looks to her husband more as inspiration than as opposition.
“I follow his lead because he is such a good trainer,” she says. “He encourages me by his dedication to it….When I see him doing it, it motivates me to want to keep doing it.”
But training together is one thing, working together is another. Here again, the couple has mastered that conundrum, appearing as co-stars in the upcoming Never Back Down (on DVD June 7th).
“We were love interests on camera, so that was a lot of fun,” says White. “I am one of the writers, the direct and also I’m leading the film, so Gillian is not only my interest in the movie but she is there shoulder to shoulder with me assisting me with everything I’m doing in the film.”
The couple even planned their July 2015 nuptials during the movie shoot, so you can imagine the stress level was at a high. But instead of turning on each other to direct stress, they actually turned toward each other for support with the taxing shooting schedule and hectic wedding plans.
When asked how they were able to do so much together without conflict, White gave us a pretty common sense response: because he couldn’t do it with anyone else.
“It would be hell if you were with the wrong person,” adds White, who appears in new episodes of Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse on the OWN Network this month.
BMWK, can you work cohesively with your spouse?