If you didn’t lose your bearings just a teeny, tiny bit during the pandemic, were you even really there?
That’s just one of the hilarious and thoughtful observations in Hollywood casting director Tess Sanchez’s debut memoir, We’ve Decided To Go In A Different Direction. After losing her job (and some of her sanity, as she recounts in an essay) as a Fox casting executive at the height of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, Sanchez tells PEOPLE that her husband, Running Point star Max Greenfield — who wrote the foreword — is to thank for her finally sitting down to tell her story. Mostly because he had had enough of her incessant musings.
Sanchez, 40, tells PEOPLE, “I actually was following my husband around the house saying, ‘What do you think about this and what do you think about that, and why did this happen, and I’m so annoyed about this.’ He was like, ‘Can you please hire a professional sounding board because I can’t do this anymore.’ I went to therapy for the first time and she was like, ‘You should write some of this stuff down.’ “
Some of that “stuff” includes laugh-out-loud stories about hustling her way from a retail job in the early aughts to casting some of the biggest roles in Hollywood, receiving her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis just after her career change and flagrantly catfishing men on dating apps for her sister.
Oh, and in a story that is almost too Hollywood to be true, having her doctor (“think season 1 Meredith Grey”) take a selfie with her New Girl-famous husband mere seconds after Sanchez delivered her daughter Lilly in 2008. She and Greenfield also have a son, Ozzy, born in 2015. “She’ll know who she is,” Sanchez laughs about the idea of the doctor reading the book.
“I wrote it like I was talking to my best friend,” she says. “I highly encourage a glass of wine and your bestie,” Sanchez recommends as a companion to the essay collection.
Read on for an exclusive excerpt from her memoir where Sanchez writes about the time she reached out to Britney Spears in the hopes of casting her as one of those besties. “This will be my second calling to her,” Sanchez says. “My doors are open.”
We’ve Decided to Go in a Different Direction by Tess Sanchez cover.
Simon & Schuster, LLC.
I am and have always been a Britney Spears fan. I wasn’t down at the courthouse with a “Free Britney” sign, but I had participated in conversations about her conservatorship and certainly sided with the movement for her to reclaim her autonomy.
A few years back, I flew to Vegas to see her Piece of Me show toward the end of her residency at Planet Hollywood. Had I known then that she was basically a prisoner on her own stage, out of respect I wouldn’t have danced and sang along so enthusiastically. I do know the lyrics to most of her songs. I bought the PEOPLE magazine that had pictures of her wedding with K-Fed. I am not bragging, but I have stored in my long-term memory her sons’ names, Sean Preston and Jayden James — information absorbed by living in Los Angeles in the early aughts. I have, however, not had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Spears myself (yet).
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I was genuinely happy when she met and married Sam Asghari, and concerned when they announced their divorce.
About a week after the Sam/Brit breakup announcement, I was flipping through Instagram and landed on one of her dance montages in a bikini top and cutoff shorts. The next story was about how she was getting away on a vacation. I thought, Yes! Turn down the noise on all the divorce drama and media speculation. Good call, Brit.
This revelation got me thinking. Who is she going away with? Is that rumor about the affair with her bodyguard true? And where the F are her girlfriends? Where’s her tribe of gals from back in the day? Who is her support system and why isn’t said group directing her to the right stylist for better hair extensions? How hard it must be for her to make friends, to trust people. She has 42 million followers, but how many friends?
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The casting director in me took over: I needed to cast a new best girlfriend—and eventually a new boyfriend—for Brit. I had honed my ability to “pick the good ones.” So I took to my Instagram and sent her a Direct Message. It read as follows:
Girl, I have been following you forever. You need a solid girlfriend, a friend who does not want or need anything from you. Someone who has your back, with no ulterior motives. I am a mom, and a sister, and have a husband and my own full life. There are normal, good people who live in Los Angeles. You don’t need to settle. Anyway, I am thinking about you and hoping that you have a bestie who can support you through your divorce. We are rooting for you. If you ever want to hang or need advice, we got you. Xo, Tess
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Tess Sanchez.
Ashley Jeanne Bowles
Okay fine, the offer to “hang” at the end took it a bit too far, but I genuinely meant it. I can’t stand to see her struggle and I really am rooting for her. I want Britney to be surrounded by good people who care about her, and I am not sorry for putting an invitation out into the ether to help. Obvi, she never wrote back, but I stand by it. And maybe someday she will accept the offer, and we will hang in my kitchen on a Friday night with cocktails and a cheese plate with my funny, kind friends with no expectation of anything in return.
It is not unlike the time we were at a small party over Oscar weekend 2021 and Taylor Swift was standing two feet from us. I said to Max, “Oh, there’s Taylor. You know her, she did an episode of New Girl season two.” (Note: She did do an episode of New Girl in 2012, but Max didn’t have a single scene with her.) Max’s eyes widened as he said, “Tess, do nooooot—” Too late. I had already leaned over and said, “Hey Taylor. Hi Joe.” (She was still dating Joe Alwyn.) “How are you guys? You know Max.” I looked at Max. He was horrified and frozen but was forced to engage as Taylor threw her arms open to give him a hug. The four of us stood talking for about twenty minutes, laughing like old friends.
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We moved so much as kids that, aside from my one bestie from middle school, Ryan, my older sister, Christina (think Melanie Lynskey), is the closest to a lifetime mirror that I have had. Christina is the yin to my yang. We are so different that we complement each other. I have always looked up to her and been amazed by her clarity and conviction. I feel fluffy next to her. She is the badass attorney, breadwinner, and PTA mom. She will lobby and challenge norms for the betterment of the whole.
It’s ironic that now as a parent, I have a sensitive, cautious listener in my son, Ozzie, and a passionate jump now, worry later joiner in Lilly. What a test of my patience when Ozzie wants to know every detail about a situation before agreeing to participate. Hi, boy-me.
As an adult, despite Christina’s proclaimed happiness and comfort with being single — and I believed her, because she had a successful career and two fantastic kids, and was living her best independent life — still, I couldn’t help it, sometimes I questioned her degree of fulfillment.
I am flawed and clearly annoying, but Max loves me and my idiosyncrasies. If he finds me lovable at my worst, I can’t be that bad, right? I longed for Christina to experience that same thing. She deserved to have a bad day and be adored anyway. As does Britney.
That was one of the reasons why, in 2019, when a close colleague said to me, “Your sister sounds great. It’s her picker that’s broken,” I was prompted to take action. Ding! I am a good picker; I do it professionally. Without her knowledge, I decided to build a profile for her on a dating website. I wanted to try my hand at casting her a boyfriend or, at the very least, a sexy fling.
I know what you’re thinking. Mind your business, Tess. Did Christina express any sentiment about being lonely? No, not exactly. No, she did not. But I can’t help myself! My soul would not rest until I knew I had done my part to maximize every ounce of potential. (Ya hear me, Britney?)
And so it began. I crafted a beautiful profile with pictures, listed hobbies, her ideal geographic dating area, her kids, her trips, and her pets. After two days of tweaks, boom, boom, click, and uploads, we were live.
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I felt proud of how authentic and honest her profile looked. I know it sounds like a stretch to use the word “honest” when she had no knowledge of this profile’s existence. So what that she had nothing to do with it! It was all TRUE.
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Once I had the gorgeous profile up and running, I let Max in on the plan. “Babe, check this out. I made a dating profile for Christina. I’m going to screen a few candidates for her.”
Max stared at me for a beat before saying, “Umm, this is called catfishing, and I think it’s illegal. And even if it isn’t technically illegal, it should be — you CANNOT do this, Tess. You are committing fraud.” I looked up at him and smiled. “It’s okay. You don’t get it. It’s a sister thing.”
Not only did he not get it, but he was also vehemently op- posed to this entire plan. Yet I would wake up every morning, take my laptop to the kitchen, and read aloud to Max about Christina’s prospective suitors, despite his objections. “Stop. Please stop reading this to me. I don’t want to be a part of this or be complicit in any way. And you also sound ridiculous.”
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Max Greenfield (left) and Tess Sanchez in 2021.
Amy Sussman/Getty
My plan all along was to come clean with Christina after I had vetted the candidates and scrutinized the tedious details of each interested suitor. And sure enough, I/Christina began a conversation with a wonderful man named Nelson, a single dad with two kids similar in age to hers. He lived close to me/her in San Francisco and had not done any online dating before. Perfect. We talked back and forth every day, getting to know the details of each other’s lives. My mornings were spent giggling at our witty exchanges, while Max stared at me with disdain and disapproval.
After about six weeks of talking/writing almost every day, I asked Nelson if he wanted to meet for coffee. We had come to know each other well enough; it was time to explore the in-per- son chemistry. However, much to my disappointment, after dozens and dozens of flirty exchanges, Nelson said he needed “more time” before meeting in person. Then on a cold November morning, I received a message from Nelson. He wrote that he really liked me but that he had met someone else on the site and they were dating exclusively, so he didn’t feel right about continuing to communicate with me.
Not gonna lie, I took the news pretty hard. Max was hardly sympathetic.
“Are you seriously upset that Nelson dumped you? I can’t believe I just said that. Do you see how abnormal this all is?!”
I nodded in acquiescence, then lamented, “But Nelson broke up with me/her before I/Christina had my/her shot at a face-to-face date. I don’t get it. What did I/she do wrong? Why didn’t he pick me/her?”
Max couldn’t resist the jab. “I guess your GAME isn’t that strong.” Ouch. Fair point.
I wrote a strongly worded message back, then deleted it. Wrote another one, deleted it. I ultimately decided to take the high road, with a less is more response. “I am happy for you. Good luck. Christina.”
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For Christina’s birthday later that November, we agreed to take a girls’ trip to Palm Springs, just the two of us. It would be the perfect time for me to finally break the news about the catfishing. After our first night, while eating a sumptuous breakfast in bed, it felt like the right time to break the news. “Chrissy, I have something I need to tell you.”
“I really want you to be happy and find love again,” I said. “But you haven’t been dating, and you’re not even trying to meet someone.”
“This profile is live and has been for about three and a half months. I’ve been corresponding, as you, with a few men, one in particular. His name is Nelson.”
And then there was a very long pause, as in no words spoken. “Here.” I handed her my computer. “Go ahead. Take a look at me as you.”
I couldn’t read her expression. Was she mad? I looked in her eyes and saw skepticism—a familiar look I often get from Max that says: What did you do now?
After nearly an hour, Christina came back inside. She sat next to me and put her hand on mine. “Thank you. Thank you, Tess. No one has ever done anything that thoughtful for me before.” I looked at her, flooded with relief. “And also, eff Nelson! His loss! We played that perfectly.”
Postscript: Christina took over my/her dating profile for a while but is currently dating a southern dreamboat from Texas who we knew growing up. My friend Britney, however . . .
Excerpted from WE’VE DECIDED TO GO IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION (Essays) by TESS SANCHEZ. Copyright © 2025 by TESS SANCHEZ. Reprinted by permission of GALLERY BOOKS, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
We’ve Decided to Go in a Different Direction by Tess Sanchez will be released on April 1. It’s available for pe-order now, wherever books are sold.
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