The moment I knew: I admitted I had a crush on her. She replied, ‘Well, that’s good. Isn’t it?’

Actors Peter Houghton and Anne Browning played lovers onstage, but a shared sense of humour and a magazine horoscope flipped the script on their real-life relationship Find more stories from the moment I knew series Anne and I met in Melbourne in 1997 when we were cast in a production of Hamlet.

We were both single and playing onstage lovers. The first time I saw her in the Melbourne Theatre Company cafeteria, she had a sleepy, grumpy face. I still recall those intense, slightly scary green eyes looking at me. I thought to myself: she is very attractive, but also quite formidable. At first it was a little awkward, but humour was the key. We’d sit on the dusty rehearsal room…