Saying ‘I Do’
Matarazzo and Murphy help fight for the right
By PJ Maytag

Actress Heather Matarazzo began acting almost as soon as she could walk. Her first feature film role was the lead, Dawn Weiner, in 1995’s Welcome to the Dollhouse for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance. Heather also played Lilly Moscovitz, the best friend to Anne Hathaway’s leading character, Mia Thermopolis, in the box office smashes, The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Heather has been working pretty steadily in the past few years. She made a big splash in last summer’s horror flick, Hostel Part Two, and had a terrific role on Logo’s excellent, yet all too short-lived comedy, Exes & Ohs, playing the eccentric rebel without a clue armed with a guitar, Crutch. Heather also has appeared on a couple episodes of The L Word. And while her professional life keeps growing, it’s her personal life that’s grabbing the headlines recently when she announced her engagement to Caroline Murphy, an up and coming musical book writer. They’ve been using their celebrity to help further marriage rights, were featured in a PSA for the Feminist Majority Foundation and recently were involved with the Same Sex in the City—The Wedding Show at the Sofitel in Los Angeles. The event, which was a precursor to our Same Sex in the City Wedding Show happening on September 7, was a huge success with proceeds benefiting The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. The BottomLine had a chance to chat by phone with the happy couple at their New York City loft about how they met, their wedding, and what it means to be getting married.

I guess my first question to you all is how did you two meet?
Caroline Murphy: Um, we met at a party for girl magazine. And actually I came in a little bit late and the only seat left was right next to her [Heather]. And then, I mean, we didn’t actually meet at that point, which just happened to be the case. But later in the evening I saw her again, and I had my eye on her all night, and it was just one of those time stops, eye contact, soul recognition moments.

So Heather, I take it you felt the same way?
Heather Matarazzo: Oh yeah, for me it was one of those things where the universe was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. And I felt myself getting up out of my seat without even knowing why, except that I saw her and I knew I knew her from somewhere but I didn’t know where. It was one of those kinds of timeless déjà vu scenarios.

Cool! So you guys just immediately hit it off and it went on from there?
Caroline: [laughs] Sort of. I was not available immediately. I mean we did hit it off in a very…I knew when I met her I was looking at my wife. I wasn’t out looking, I was in another relationship, and happy, and everything was fine. It really upset a lot of my plans to meet Heather and find out, ‘Oh, this is my wife.’

Well, that takes guts, a lot of times people may have that feeling but fail to act upon it because they’re already in a relationship…I applaud you for going for it.
Caroline: You know, it’s so weird. I would love to take credit for being so brave and having those guts. But the truth was, when I say that when I looked at her I saw my wife, I don’t mean that in a romantic way—it was so matter of fact, a matter of destiny, that there was no real guts about it. It was like a magnetic pull that I had no say in. If it had been a matter of bravery I would’ve chickened out for sure. It’s no way in my nature to even end relationships much less even begin them—I’m kind of a chicken shit that way.

Well you found each other, and that’s half the battle. So who proposed?
Heather : We both proposed to each other. We both wanted the experience of being proposed to and we both wanted the experience of proposing. So Caroline proposed first, at Christmas.
Caroline: Under the tree…

Aww, did you get down on your knees?
Caroline: I sure did. And I had my family in the next room, and I had my cell phone secretly in my hand so I could hit ‘send’ to call them as soon as the proposal was finished so that they could all come out singing.

That’s so romantic! I guess it was a good thing that Heather said yes with your family in the wings.
Caroline: Oh, it would’ve been horrible if she hadn’t—super awkward. [Heather and Caroline laugh]

Heather, how did you reciprocate?
Heather : Well, months later…
Caroline: Many months, of holding my breath.
Heather : Well, for me it was that thing of wanting to really truly find the perfect ring and I did a lot of research and there wasn’t a ring I could find. And then I had read in this book that rubies were the symbol for divine love. Then, through a series of circumstances, I ended up meeting somebody that designed wedding rings, so I went in and met with them and designed Caroline’s ring—which took some time. And then I was going to propose on the anniversary of when we met, which was April 18. And then I got the ring in my pocket, and I was like, “I can wait, I can wait, I can wait.” Then we went to see Passing Strange. And sitting through Passing Strange and the message I got from that, that life is so short, so in my dramatic brain I thought, “Well, what if I get hit by a bus tomorrow?” Or what if something horrible happened, I would never have the opportunity to just do it. So, um, the next thing I knew we had gotten home and it was as if a force bigger than me pushed me to my knees and I asked her. It was a very fumbling, stumbling, unromantic, clumsy way.
Caroline: It was perfect!

So what about your last names? Taking each other’s? Hyphenated? Keep them the same?
Caroline: We don’t know…[sighs] we go back and forth. Names are such a sacred thing. My whole life, even when I presumed I would be marrying a man, it never sat right with me that I’d lose my last name. I don’t know—what are we going to do?
Heather : I feel like if anything we’d hyphenate.
Caroline: But if we hyphenate that seems a lot of syllables.
Heather : I know. Matarazzo-Murphy, Murphy-Matarazzo. I like Matarazzo-Murphy a lot better than Murphy-Matarazzo.
Caroline: I like Matarazzo-Murphy.

Have you two set a date?
Heather : We’re pretty much looking into fall 2009.
Caroline: It used to be spring but now we think it’s fall. People keep asking what our plans are for the wedding and what not—I don’t know how people plan weddings, it seems really, really difficult. Not to mention the fact that laws keep changing. So, if we plan a California wedding, and that changes, or if in the meantime New York legalizes marriage ... we have a few serious choices to make.

So are you taking a wait-and-see attitude about doing a California wedding?
Caroline: We talked about doing a Massachusetts wedding in the fall.

That’s right, they just waived the residency requirement there.
Caroline: Yeah, and I went to school there and was introduced to the fall leaves of Massachusetts and it seems almost too perfect for us to get married in the forest in the fall like in Amherst or Northhampton or something. But, [laughs] then I remember that I forgot to go to jury duty in Massachusetts and someone told me that if I ever go back there they’ll catch me. So now I’m trying to repaint California as where we should go.
Caroline, I was wondering, when you proposed in December that was way before the California decision and other developments like New York recognizing marriages and Massachusetts waiving residency requirements—were you thinking of getting married in Canada then?
Caroline: You know, I wasn’t really thinking anything; I didn’t know what the future held politically and legally. I just—again going back to when I met Heather, the word ‘wife’ was so loud in my ear and not ‘domestic partner’ but ‘wife.’ When I proposed, I proposed like we were to wed and have a marriage and a wedding and it was going to be legal. That knowingness transcended the details. And then it just so happened to be the case that all those changes started happening right after and the optimist in me foresees it coming true.

So you feel that Proposition 8 will be defeated in November?
Caroline: Proposition 8 alone, and the ban on gay marriage and even the discussion of gay marriage in its entirety seems completely to go against the Constitution. So I never could really even believe that the constitutional ban would happen or that I wouldn’t be allowed to get married. I grew up in Texas where there’s a lot of patriotism—all those things that America were founded on were ingrained in my head. It doesn’t even seem conceivable that Proposition 8 could pass. It doesn’t seem conceivable that another year could go by without gay marriage becoming legal for everyone. It does for me, I don’t know if Heather feels a bit more nervous.
Heather : Here’s the thing, I’m a firm believer that everything that is meant to happen, happens as it’s meant to happen. I find there’s a lot of apathy within the gay community and also outside of the gay community with the so-called straight friends and allies. There’s a distant outcry of outrage, but it’s not loud and piercing, it’s just a faint echo. For myself in getting to have the experiences so far ... like we just did a PSA on voting no on Prop 8, to meet and to hear stories about women that have flown to California that have been together for 50 years and finally get to marry. And every single day I get to have continual gratitude not only for the woman that I get to spend the rest of my life with, but that I get to experience what a sacred institution marriage is and what that means. For me the definition of marriage is love. That to me is the definition of marriage. I feel that what is the best way to bring about change, the fastest way, in the sense of the collective consciousness. And I don’t think the general American public knows about the 1,021 rights that we as gays and lesbian citizens don’t get with civil unions and domestic partnerships. It is separate and unequal. Like Caroline puts it so eloquently, to make it illegal for us to get married is to legalize discrimination.
Caroline: And indoctrinate it.

I personally don’t think it’s going to pass, but then, you never know.
Heather : And also for me it’s that thing of like, “Well, if it does pass, then what?” Then maybe actually there will be enough steam going to let our voices be completely, fully heard. I feel that at least some of the gay and lesbian people that I’ve met that are saying, “What’s the point of getting married anyway and why would you like to be a part of that and blah blah blah,” that mentality in our community that is so incredibly embittered. Well, if marriage isn’t for you that’s fine, but please don’t just sit on your couch and do nothing and leave those that do want those rights out in the cold.

 Switching gears here a little, what’s next for you all career-wise?
Heather : For me I am working with Ash Christian later this fall on his next film Mangus! and Caroline…
Caroline: I write book and lyric for musicals and right now I have a piece that I just got back from Colorado, where we were commissioned to write by University of Colorado, Boulder; that piece right now is getting work shopped in New York in preparation for production in March.