Max Greenfield's 2 Kids: All About Lilly and Ozzie

Max Greenfield is an actor, producer and author, but his favorite role is being a dad to his kids: Lilly and Ozzie.

The New Girl star and his wife, former casting director Tess Sanchez, married in 2008. A year and a half later, the pair welcomed their first child, daughter Lilly. The family expanded again with the birth of their son, Ozzie, in 2015.

“I definitely didn't think I was ready,” he told Parents about becoming a first-time dad. “You're a psychopath if you're about to have your first child and you're like, ‘I'm ready for this!’ ”

In the same interview, Sanchez shared that she was initially hesitant about adding another child to the mix, but Greenfield was fully on board to try for baby No. 2. “After Lilly, I knew I wanted a second,” he explained. “I was an only child, and I wanted her to have a sibling.”

The actor admitted that adjusting to two kids didn't happen overnight, though. Shortly after Ozzie was born, he told PEOPLE that there were “moments of exhaustion and despair.” But, he said, being a new dad again also came with “all the moments of joy.”

The Neighborhood star, best known for his comedic roles, takes a similarly playful approach to parenting. “Point me in the direction of having fun, and I'm there. But I'm terrible at all the other stuff,” he told Parents about his style of fatherhood.

As for whether or not he’s interested in continuing to grow his family, Greenfield says he’s already got his hands full. “Having two kids is like having 1,000,” he told GQ. "It makes everything so much harder.”

He added, "I couldn’t be any more [into being a dad]. ... Couldn’t be more done. But so happy with these two idiots.”

Here’s everything to know about Max Greenfield’s kids: Lilly and Ozzie.

Lilly Greenfield, 14

Greenfield and Sanchez welcomed their daughter, Lilly Greenfield, on Jan. 27, 2010.

At the time, she was a casting director at Fox, and he decided to dedicate himself to fatherhood full-time amid a career lull. “I was out of work and ready to stop acting altogether,” he told Parents. “So, I told Tess, ‘I’ve got the baby. You do your thing.’ ”

It wasn't an easy adjustment for the Unfrosted cast member, who admitted to asking Sanchez for help on multiple occasions. “I remember sleepless nights, crying in the laundry room, thinking, 'This is how they torture war criminals,’ ” he joked.

Speaking about their parenting style, Sanchez explained that their only rule for their kids is to “be kind and have compassion.” She elaborated, “We are pretty relaxed about everything, except how they treat and talk to other people. The only time we ever get mad is if we see the kids being thoughtless."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, that laid-back attitude was on full display, too. Like many other parents, Greenfield had to navigate homeschooling due to the quarantine period. “I was really overwhelmed,” he said in an interview with Fatherly.

Still, he used the opportunity to bond with his daughter and showcase their shared sense of humor with a series of hilarious videos on social media.

“[I] was like, well, maybe we should really have some fun. So we would film videos when we have a break in our day, in between studying,” he shared. “We’d make a video if we had a really funny idea. ... Lilly was really excited about it, and it made that time kind of fun and exciting.”

While he was happy to let Lilly return to in-person learning, he enjoyed the brief stretch of homeschooling. “It was a really rewarding experience,” he told AOL. “We made the best of a really overwhelming and unfortunate situation for her in that she had me as a teacher.”

The father-daughter duo have also bonded through TikTok. During an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, Greenfield shared that he only joined the social media platform for Lilly, who isn't allowed to have an account herself. Now, she’s responsible for choreographing all of his videos.

“She somehow knows how to do all these dances,” he told host Jennifer Hudson. “If she’s not in it, she’s behind the camera going, ‘And now dad, you do this.’ ”

The actor showed off plenty of those dance moves in 2023 when he took Lilly to Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour show in Los Angeles. Greenfield, who attended the concert with his whole family, told PEOPLE, “It was the best vibe ever.”

Lilly seems to share her dad’s sense of humor, but she might also be taking after him regarding a future career. In 2016, Greenfield told PEOPLE that his then 6 year old was interested in acting.

“She’s a bit of a performer,” he said. “She was in Mary Poppins recently and she played Mary Poppins, and she was Ms. Hannigan in Annie.”

Nearly eight years later, that prediction proved true when Lilly appeared on a season 4 episode of The Neighborhood alongside her dad.

“We had her audition, she was excellent if I do say so,” Greenfield said while speaking about the experience on the Rachael Ray Show. “She loves it here, and she was nice to everyone except me."

The proud father also posted on Instagram to promote his daughter’s television premiere. “All New @theneighborhood this Monday night with a very special guest star,” he wrote alongside a photo of the two on set. “Difficult to work with but an absolute joy to watch ❤️.”

Ozzie James Greenfield, 9

Greenfield and Sanchez welcomed their second child, son Ozzie James Greenfield, on Aug. 24, 2015.

“We have kids now — plural!” he told PEOPLE shortly after his baby boy was born. “Now it’s like, ‘I got to go pick up the kids. I got to get the kids home.’ That ‘s,’ the pluralized kid, is a big deal.”

Still, Greenfield hasn’t been shy about the difficulty of raising two kids.

“The second kid was a wake-up call, in terms of time management and keeping on top of everything,” he told Men’s Journal. “I realized what may have worked in the past is not working in the present. Our son has led me to having a lot less time and being deeply exhausted for most of the time.”

Unlike the first time around, when his son arrived, Greenfield was starring on a hit television show that earned him an Emmy nomination.

“By the time Ozzie was born, Max was pulling crazy hours on New Girl, so I was the one who was up all night,” Sanchez told Parents. “Even now, Ozzie still climbs into our bed at 2 a.m. Along with the dog.”

According to Greenfield, though, he doesn’t mind co-sleeping. “When I go on location to shoot a movie and lie in bed alone, it is scary,” he quipped. “So if the kids want to climb into our bed, c'mon! Get on in!”

As for how Ozzie feels about his dad’s line of work, it appears he isn’t phased by it.

“My son is just starting to realize that I’m an actor, but I don’t think he really knows what an actor is,” Greenfield said in an interview with Salon. “He’s seen The Neighborhood a couple times. I think he’s really intrigued by the laugh track, so now he keeps trying to get laughs.”

He continued, explaining that Ozzie will try to make people laugh no matter where he is. “[It’s] really good for me because it keeps me entertained. And he is genuinely funny,” the actor added.

During the same interview, Greenfield opened up about how being a father helped him add another role to his résumé: author.

In November 2021, he published his first children’s book, I Don’t Want to Read This Book, which was inspired by Lilly and Ozzie.

“My kids don’t like to read, and I argue with them every night about reading,” Greenfield said. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, an agent approached him about writing a children’s book.

“I thought, ‘Well it's interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Well, if I was ever going to do a picture book, it'd be all the reasons why you don't want to read a book, and by the end of the book you've read a book,’ ” he explained.

Greenfield has since published two more books for kids who don’t necessarily love to read: This Book Is Not a Present and I Don’t Want to Read This Book Aloud. His fourth book, Good Night Thoughts, will be published in September 2024.

“I had so much fun writing, and it couldn't have turned out any better,” he said about his first title.