NEED TO KNOW
The actor and musician says he “had no idea at all” that Ron was Paige’s father and Bryce Dallas Howard was her sister when they first met
“I came over to her apartment to rehearse a scene, and we never got to the scene, and the rest is history,” Tim recalls
Tim Abou-Nasr had no idea his now-wife, Paige Howard, was the daughter of a Hollywood legend when they met.
Speaking with PEOPLE about his 365-day cover-song project, the 37-year-old actor and musician recalls meeting Paige, 40, during a year-long professional acting conservatory almost eight years ago.
“It was pretty small; maybe 16 of us. But we worked together throughout the whole year, the same small group,” Tim says. “And then I came over to her apartment to rehearse a scene, and we never got to the scene, and the rest is history.”
“It was really like, a meet-cute situation, where I came over to rehearse this love scene,” he recalls.
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Tim Abou-Nasr
As for his now-wife’s famous family, Tim tells PEOPLE he “had no idea at all” that Ron, 71, was her father, and that Bryce Dallas Howard was her sister.
“We were well into the class before I had any idea that she was affiliated with anybody else in the industry,” he recalls of the “surprise” of finding out later, during the visit to her apartment.
“Obviously, when she said, ‘Oh, my dad is Ron Howard and my sister is Bryce,’ I obviously knew who those people were, but I liked her so much and I was like, ‘I don’t care. I like you,’ ” Tim adds.
Paige and Tim were originally supposed to get married in May 2020 — a plan that was derailed by COIVD-19, like so many others’ nuptials.
“It didn’t end up happening until two full years later. So we had a very prolonged engagement and we had just moved in together before COVID hit, so we had the whole pandemic to really get to know each other,” Tim says. While “it was hard at the time,” it was also a “beautiful” opportunity for them to get closer.
“It was a tragic time, but we had so much fun together because it was just like this romantic sleepover, and we were like on an island, just the two of us. It was crazy,” he tells PEOPLE. “We both always say that we ended up being very grateful for that time before we got married.”
The couple married in May 2022 in New York City’s Central Park, where Ron officiated and Bryce, 44, served as a bridesmaid by her sister’s side. (Ron is also dad to Paige’s twin sister Jocelyn, as well as his youngest child with wife Cheryl Howard: son Reed, 38.)
“It was so different than the wedding we originally planned,” Tim says. “It was going to be all our extended families, in Queens … but it ended up very intimate, just her family and my family in Central Park, and her dad officiated. And it was amazing, but it was different.”
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And despite the smaller size, “it was so memorable for everyone who was there” — and the memories are even clearer for him than they may have been otherwise.
“I mean, I love a big wedding. It’s so fun. I love to do all of it,” Tim says. “But we have very specific memories with the people who were there. And I mean, it was a blur, obviously, like they always are, but it wasn’t overwhelming.”
