Mason Thames has explained how he and Mckenna Grace first met, and the answer is the back of an Uber.
According to Cosmopolitan‘s timeline of the couple, Thames told People in October 2025 that the two were riding together to see Deadpool Wolverine in July 2024. No set. No audition room. No red carpet.
Thames told People the meeting happened on the way to a movie theater. He said he thought the film was Deadpool Wolverine, and that he and Grace clicked right away. From then on, he said, they hung out constantly. Cosmopolitan places that ride in July 2024.
One month later, the cast of Regretting You was announced, with Grace and Thames as the romantic leads in the Colleen Hoover adaptation.
Their First Encounter Was Anything but Awkward
Thames admitted to People that a first meeting could easily have gone the other way. He said that instead of being painfully awkward, the ride turned out funny and fun. Strangers sharing a car to a superhero movie is about as low stakes as a meeting gets. Nobody is performing. Nobody has a script.
Two people either have something to say to each other or they stare at their phones, and by Thames’s account they had plenty to say.
Their work together started soon after. Cosmopolitan reports that Nimrods, previously titled New Year’s Rev, began filming in February 2025, before Regretting You. That made it their first movie together.
Regretting You started filming in Atlanta the following month.
The Couple Gained Public Attention During the Regretting You Press Tour
Grace kept posting.
Cosmopolitan tracks a September 2024 video of the pair at a Green Day concert and an April 2025 TikTok of a playfully staged kiss. A May 2025 Instagram photo dump followed, with candid shots of the two of them. They also turned up at a Miami Heat vs. Atlanta Hawks game with costar Dave Franco. Dating rumors started in June 2025, when they were photographed holding hands in New York City.
Around then, Thames spoke to Seventeen about his costar. He called Grace “one of the most driven people I’ve ever met in my life.” He also told the magazine she was among the funniest people he knew.
Then came the Regretting You press tour. For months, Cosmopolitan writes, the two stars teased the question of whether they were dating off screen, with flirty behavior that never quite answered it. Playing love interests while promoting a love story is a strange spot to be in. Every look gets read as evidence.
Keeping the answer private, even for a while, gave them something the cameras did not own.
Mckenna Grace Relationship Blossoms at the 2026 Oscars
Grace ended the guessing at the biggest event possible. She brought Thames as her date to the 2026 Oscars, which Cosmopolitan describes as their official hard launch.
Going from a shared Uber to an Academy Awards date took less than two years.
The pair returned to screens together in Nimrods, and Mckenna Grace has The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping coming soon, according to Cosmopolitan. Mckenna Grace has not been quoted in the timeline describing the relationship in her own words.
Sources: Cosmopolitan
