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| First picture together, following a performance. |
Gina and Jett came into each others' lives in 2004, first meeting while auditioning for a production of Of Mice and Men. As fortune had it, Jett was cast as Curly, and Gina as Curly's Wife! Jett talks about the first time he saw Gina over 9 years ago: "I was at the back of the theater (it was actually 2003 because the auditioning took place in November and the play did not start rehearsal until January 2004). I saw Gina reading her lines, wearing high heels and a red skirt, and I remember thinking that she was one of the prettiest women I had ever seen. My real thought at the time may have been less appropriate, but hey, I was 24."
Gina did not officially meet Jett until play rehearsals started, when he left a strong impression: "While waiting for rehearsal to start, I was eating chinese food and going over the script. This jerk came over and asked what I was eating, then proceeded to warn me that eating like that would make me fat. That was definitely a different approach than I was used to, and it left an impression. I didn't really know what to think of him at first."
Jett had his eyes on Gina during the play and he tried to take his shirt off as much as possible in front of her, earning the nickname Jett can-I-take-my-shirt-off Dunlap.
In spite of his shameless peacocking, Gina and Jett became friends, spending many a cold night in the theater parking lot talking until the early hours of the morning. Their relationship came into existence after Jett asked Gina out to coffee shortly before the play opened. They met up at The Coffee Bean and had their first kiss in the parking lot of LA Fitness, where Gina and Jett would work in the future and a place Gina works as a group instructor today.
After that first kiss, things moved fast. Jett asked Gina to be his girlfriend after an especially romantically-charged cast party. Before dropping her off on campus where her car was parked, Jett asked, "will you be my girlfriend?" and, caught off guard, Gina replied "Why?!" She later said yes, and if you watch the video of the proposal at Club 33, you will hear him say "don't ask why" in reference to that moment.