All The New York Times ‘Modern Love’ Columns That Were Turned Into TV
Some of the most amazing true-life love stories ever told.
Modern Love is a show for sappy, sentimental freaks.
The new Amazon Prime TV show is based on the long-running New York Times column — it tells true stories of “love, loss and redemption”, about near-misses, lost connections, friendships and personal revelations.
At this point in its near 15-year history, the ‘Modern Love’ column is an institution. Along with weekly columns edited by Dan Jones, it has a podcast, a book, a show, and even comes in miniature.
It’s enduring popularity is testament to our very human desire to get invested in a really wonderful tale.
Even Jones is constantly surprised by the stories: “You’d think after 14 years at this, I would have seen every love story imaginable. But then I pull up some strange tale full of surprising wisdom and am floored all over again.”
The adaptation of Modern Love (by directors John Carney, Tom Hall, Sharon Horgan and Emmy Rossum) has a shamelessly all-star cast with an equally shameless penchant for being corny. Each episode is based off a true story from the column, and one of the most fascinating parts of the watching experience is seeing real life translated into fiction.
But it’s not immediately apparent which episodes are based off which column, so we’ve gone and done the pathetic late-night Googling about the real-life stories behind the characters in the show.
1. ‘When The Doorman Is Your Main Man’
In ‘When The Doorman Is Your Main Man’, we meet Maggie (Cristin Milioti, or the mother from How I Met Your Mother) who is terrified of introducing her love interests to her discerning doorman, Guzim (Laurentiu Possa).
After a short-lived relationship with boring guy Ted, Maggie finds herself pregnant, with Guzim as her main form of emotional support. Tears ensue.
The episode was based on an essay by Julie Margaret Hogben, who later admitted to podcast host Meghna Chakrabarti that she’s still single, and doesn’t have any relationship with her daughter’s father. The last she heard, he had moved to Israel.
“I have the life experience to know that only a specific kind of person, and a particular kind of man, could step out of his own child’s life completely,” she says. “So, in a way, that points to the possibility where she and I are both really dodging a bullet.”
In a heroic moment, the real Guzim is brought on to the podcast too. He says Julie is “very strong in [his] eyes” and, oh look, we’re crying again! Hogben’s daughter (real name Isabel) is 12 now, and very cute.
Listen to the podcast here.
2. ‘When Cupid Is A Prying Journalist’
Journalist Julie (Catherine Keener) and plucky dating app founder, Joshua (Dev Patel) go beyond the run-of-the-mill PR interview by swapping stories of their lost loves.
Hers is Michael (Andy Garcia! Fernando!), who she met years and years ago on a beach in the Caribbean. His is Emma (Caitlin McGee), an old flame he had a six-month relationship with before she cheated on him with her old high school boyfriend.
In reality, that dating app Dev Patel starts in the show is actually Hinge, and it was founded by Justin McLeod. In the column, written by Deborah Copaken, McLeod was the person doing the dirty behind college sweetheart Kate’s back. He lamented about not being “the best version of himself back then”.
Thankfully, just like in the show, Kate and Justin are now happily married.
But, regrettably, just like in the show, the real-life Catherine Keener and her “long-lost love” didn’t get their fairytale ending. Copaken wrote in the original column, “He realised how much he needed to work on tending to his marriage. I realised I had given mine all the nutrients and care I could — 23 years of tilling that soil — but the field was fallow.”
Speaking to the Times recently, Copaken told another story of the strange way she crossed paths with her young love, years before they had reconnected. A friend of his had been at Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris and so had Copaken. The friend had taken photos and took them home to show Andy Garcia, who saw Copaken in the background and said, “That’s my girlfriend!”.
3. ‘Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am’
In this episode, we meet Lexi (Anne Hathaway), who is doing her best to navigate the dating scene as a woman with bipolar. Jeff (Gary Carr) shows a lot of initial interest in her, but after her mania winds down, he appears flummoxed as to how to move forward.
The show was inspired by Terri Cheney’s original column and left in a lot of similarities, like the iconic line about the coloured pills, her main love interest’s name, and the dizzying moves from high to low. (Though they added in the La La Land styling.)
But it’ll still serve you to read the column, if not just for the beautiful kicker it ends on.
Cheney writes, “Life seems so much tamer these days: deceptively quiet, like a tiger with velveted paws. Every so often the sun shines too bright and I think, for a moment, that I own the sky. I think, how wonderful it was to be Gilda, if only in my own mind. But then I remember the price of the sky. So I take off my makeup, rumple my hair and go to the supermarket in sweats. The gold sequinned shirt languishes in my closet. I’m thinking of giving it away. Not just yet.”
While she never heard from Jeff again, Cheney reveals a recent interview with the Times that she’s in love and loved back. “I don’t know necessarily if I’m in a relationship. I do love. I am in love. So that’s great.”
Listen to the podcast here.
4. ‘Rallying To Keep The Game Alive’
In ‘Rallying to Keep the Game Alive’, Sarah (Tina Fey) and Dennis (John Slattery) are at somewhat of an impasse. They’ve been married for years, with two kids about to head off to college, and their marriage counselling doesn’t seem to be working. They take up tennis a last-ditch effort to save their relationship.
Editor of the ‘Modern Love’ column, Dan Jones calls the 2013 piece the episode is based on, written by Ann Leary, a “perfect essay”. In the most recent encore podcast episode of this story, Jones joins Leary and producer Caitlin O’Keefe to talk about it being adapted for the screen, and why he pushed for it to be included in the series.
“This tennis metaphor is so beautifully and organically done in the essay — you can compete in a marriage, or you can be on the same team, or play to each other’s advantage,” he said. “I’ve read, what, 120,000 personal essays in the last 15 years or something and a lot of them don’t teach me very much. And this one taught me a lesson about marriage that I think about all the time.”
Leary and her husband just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary.
Listen to the podcast here.
5. ‘At The Hospital, An Interlude Of Charity’
A man (John Gallagher Jr.) and a woman (Sofia Boutella) meet, they go on a date and then the man brutally slices his hand on a martini glass. ‘At The Hospital, An Interlude of Charity’ is an episode that carries on in a very mid-2000s manic pixie form — lots of meaningful conversation, a misunderstood girl, an anxious guy. A cheesy ending.
Thankfully, Brian Gittis’ original column doesn’t have that same energy. In fact, his story ends a lot differently.
“I would like to be able to say my story ends in an epiphany, with the end of my anxiety and the beginning of an enduring relationship,” the column reads. “But the reality is she left me about a month later. Not because she had found me repulsive in the fluorescent light of the hospital, but for a more conventional reason: she missed her ex-boyfriend.”
After the piece went live, Gittis tells podcast host Meghna Chakrabarti that he actually met up with the piece’s love interest for a drink to talk about it. They went on a few more dates after that but it ultimately fizzled out.
Listen to the podcast here.
6. ‘So He Looked Like Dad. It Was Just Dinner, Right?’
Maddie (Julia Garner) develops a fondness for a robot developer at her work, Peter (Shea Whigham), who is twice her age. He reminds her of her dad and the two embark on a confusing friendship with differing intentions.
The 2006 column, written by Abby Sher, gave a lot more colour and nuance to the relationship between Maddie and the much-older ‘Genius’. In reality, the story doesn’t end with a cliff-hanger (“Wait!”) but with Sher firmly requesting that her accidental date take her home.
According to her website, Abby Sher seems to be doing great.
7. ‘D.J.’s Homeless Mommy (aka, Hers Was A World Of One)’
In the episode ‘Hers Was a World of One’, Tobin (Andrew Scott, Hot Priest) and husband Andy (Brandon Kyle Goodman) search for a child to adopt into their family. Their soon-to-be adopted child’s birth mother Karla (Olivia Cooke) is a vagabond — homeless by choice — and ends up butting heads with Tobin before giving birth to the couple’s girl. Ed Sheeran was also there.
Originally titled ‘DJ’s Homeless Mommy’, the essay this episode was based on is a lot more dark. Instead of focusing on the lead up to the child’s birth, the column hones in on the sometimes uncomfortable dynamics that arise when your adopted child is still in touch with their birth mother. More uncomfortable, still, when that mother has substance abuse problems, and keeps getting sent to prison.
Written by columnist and activist Dan Savage (who voices the podcast version), ‘D.J.’s Homeless Mommy’ gives a lot more depth to the ‘wild spirit’ narrative we were sold in the show. This line in particular is a devastating: “I thought I knew what a broken heart looked like, how it felt, but I didn’t know anything. You know what a broken heart looks like? Like a sobbing teenager handing over a two-day-old infant she can’t take care of to a couple she hopes can.”
In the after-reading interview on the 2016 podcast, Savage says his child’s mother is doing well. Listen to the podcast here.
8. ‘The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap’
This last episode is a look at love in later life, showing us Margot (Jane Alexander) and Kenji (James Saito) who meet in a running group.
They have a short but tender time together before Kenji’s sad death. (There’s also an unnecessary tying-up at the end that had nothing to do with any of the columns’ true stories, but gets a special mention for making us cry for no reason. Plus: supporting character Charles from Younger!)
Eve Pell’s column gives a really beautiful insight into her relationship with her love, real name Sam, including a heartwarming story about how she devised a plan to ask him out. “We followed our hearts and gambled, and for a few years we had a bit of heaven on earth.” There’s a picture of the two on her website.
In the podcast, Pell admits that she met someone new in her bereavement therapy and, personally, we wish nothing but the deepest happiness for her.
Listen to the podcast here.
Modern Love is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
Josephine is a writer from western Sydney and the former editor of Uni Junkee. She co-hosts a podcast about money called Frugal Forever.