Lights, camera…romance? Glass Casa may be a dark comedy whodunit, but one of its sweetest plot twists actually happened off-screen.
The film’s hair and makeup artist, Kalia White, and key grip, Harris Smith, met and fell in love while working on the movie—and married not long after wrap.
We sat down with the couple to learn how their real-life love story unfolded on set.
Kalia (right) and Harris (left).
The Meet Cute
Harris still remembers the moment he first spotted his future wife. He was setting up his equipment on set, “And then I saw this beautiful woman going down this hill where we were filming.”
He soon learned she was the hair and makeup artist and wasted no time finding ways to connect with her. His first excuse? Asking about her electrical needs for the hair and makeup station.
Then came a real bonding moment. “She was waxing people’s noses. And I was like, well, I need to get [her] attention. I need to do something to really let her know that I’m there and I want to be a part of her life. So I’m like, ‘hey, why don’t you wax my nose hairs?’ I’ve never had my nose hairs waxed in my entire life. And she’s like,’ oh, yeah, sure.’”
Harris remembers the moment vividly.
“She got the wax going. She put it on a popsicle stick. She put it up there…it hardened, and then she just pulled it as hard as she could. Now because I wanted to keep my dignity, I was just like, okay. That hurt a lot. I can’t show her that that hurt me. The first one hurt bad. Second one is going to hurt even worse. And it did. But I didn’t cry in front of her. I didn’t wince. I didn’t show any pain. But as soon as I left, a little tear went down my face because of the pain. I was like, oh, man, was that really worth it? But that was the first time that I really met her was when she assaulted my nose. And she still does.”
“I do,” Kalia confirms. Asked whether she saw through his tough front, Kalia says, “I was like, there’s no way that didn’t hurt you at all. Like he was trying to impress me. But he also didn’t mention a little bit of wax got into his mustache. So he had a hole in his stache for like a few days. He was such a sweetheart about it. He just wanted to be in my presence.”
“Yes, I did. I wanted to be in your presence. Absolutely,” Harris chimes in.
The First Date
For Harris, the attraction was immediate. Kalia’s journey took a little longer—when she met Harris, she had recently sworn off dating and was at a point in her life when seeking a romantic relationship wasn’t at all on her radar. In fact, “I really didn’t even know he existed on set for like the first five or seven days,” she says. As the shoot went on, though, their friendship deepened. They started talking about exes, life, and everything in between.
“Eventually like we just started talking more and more every day,” she says, which led to their first date.
That first official date happened thanks to Harris’ hair, which they both confirm was “disgusting” when they first met. Since Kalia was giving on-set haircuts to the cast, Harris asked if he could come to her salon for one. Coincidentally, he was an alum of the school Kalia was attending online and offered to show her the campus afterward.
Harris took this photo of Kalia on their first date.
Before their campus tour and haircut date Kalia had no intention of dating Harris. “I didn’t think anything of it because we had been talking about our exes and where we were in life. And, you know, I wasn’t interested in dating so I never thought that we would actually ever be dating. And everybody was like, ‘What’s going on with you guys? Like there’s something going on,’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? Like, no, like we’re talking about his ex.’”
After that first date and a second off-set hangout, everything changed. “Yeah,” says Kalia. “The rest is history and we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”
The All-Nighters
Their relationship grew quickly, nurtured by the long nights and shared experiences on the Glass Casa set.
Harris says, “The last like two weeks of working on this shoot were all overnights, so it was all like 7 p. m all the way to 7 a.m. And, you know, when you’re together and you’re supposed to be in one spot and it’s nighttime, you’re more vulnerable. You’re more willing to be open with somebody. You don’t want to dance around it. You cut straight to the chase. You tell how you really feel.”
And those feelings only intensified as the movie entered its final days of shooting.
The couple on the set of Glass Casa.
“She is the reason why I looked forward to going to set. As you’re getting towards the end of it, it’s crunch hour, the days are getting more hectic. She was the bright shining light of peace and harmony. I always knew I could look to her and be like, everything’s gonna be okay, everything’s gonna be fine…You know, more and more and more, I’m just like, she is very special. She is not like any other person.”
The Second-Take Proposal
After Glass Casa wrapped, the relationship continued to grow. When the time came to propose, Harris leaned into their shared professional background in film.
He recruited a friend to capture the moment on 16mm film and brought Kalia to a scenic cliffside, where he got down on one knee, pulled out a jewelry box, and, “I opened the box and the ring wasn’t there. The ring was in a plastic bag, and that plastic bag was on the roof of the ring box. So I opened it up, the ring wasn’t there; she laughed, and she looked at her friends, which bought me some time. I turned it around, and I was like, ‘Where’d the ring go?’ And then I saw it in there. Then I took it out of the ring box, and I shook the bag, and the ring out of the box, and I put it back, and I closed it.
Because, working in the film industry, you could always get a take two. My friend’s still filming over there. I’m not sure how much film is left. I know there isn’t a lot, so I had to be super quick. And so then I reset, she resets, and then I re-propose, open up the box, and when I open up the box, and she sees the ring, and she looks at me, and you see this, like, you know, nodding, like, agreement. And the film stops. Any sooner or any later, it would have looked bad. But it fades away perfectly after the yes and I’m about to stand up. And I’m just like, whoa.”
They didn’t know if the film captured the full magical moment until it was developed.
“And then once it got developed, I’m like, ‘oh, just a razor-thin edge.’ We nearly missed it. And that’s kind of how I feel about our relationship on set. Like, we cultivated this thing, we brought it together, and then the right things happened to where we ended up with a happy ending. And we captured it all within that very small window. And if we’d missed that window, it would have been gone. But I held on to that window. We held on to that window. We realized the special thing that we had. And then we just let it grow from there. And we’re continuing on with that as well. We have a lot of future plans with each other. Every day is a blessing with you.”
“It is. Thank you, love,” says Kalia.
Kalia and Harris on their wedding day.
These two are clearly very much in love—and we couldn’t be happier that Glass Casa brought them together. Congratulations, Kalia and Harris—and best of luck in all your future adventures!