Check Out the Celebrity Couples You Keep Forgetting About—and a Few Who Might Be News to You

From actors who've been together for decades to some more recent millennial pairings, we've scoured the non-headlines to bring you this list of enduring under-the-radar couples.

By Natalie Finn Apr 18, 2021 7:00 AMTags
Watch: Necessary Realness: Celebrity Couples We Love

Ah, celebrity couples. There are so many categories when it comes to love among the famous.

Young, new, short-term, long-term, rebound, dreamy, dramatic and—one that seems to come up a lot—former. 

Relationships in various levels of peril, from Twitter feuds to messy or shocking divorces, tend to suck up most of the headline oxygen, with leftover space going to people dating, getting married or having children. And while most couples comprised of actors, directors, artists and basically any kind of "personality" will garner at least one of these at some point—because not a lot sneaks through the cracks these days—some are just so undramatically ensconced with one another that it doesn't occur to the wider world to peek behind the curtain.

Just this week, when E! News confirmed Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song quietly welcomed their first child together—a son named Dakota Song Culkin—it wasn't just the baby news that had fans shocked, the couple having kept the pregnancy a secret. But rather, the reminder that private pair were even, well, a pair. 

photos
They Dated? Surprising Star Couples

So today, we're pulling back the curtain to to give a modicum of spotlight to partnerships that have simply existed in our midst, going along normally as if they don't involve one of the stars of the highest-rated show on TV or your favorite British dames.  

Be prepared to be startled, pleasantly surprised and otherwise comforted by these notable pairings:

Alexis Bledel & Vincent Kartheiser

They met when the Gilmore Girls star had a guest arc on Mad Men as the unstable object of Pete Campbell's adulterous affections—and lived happily ever after, marrying in 2014 and quietly welcoming a son in the fall of 2015.

Mireille Enos & Alan Ruck

More people should know that the star of The Killing and Amazon Prime's Good Omens has been married to Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (now leaving a mark as Connor Roy on Succession) since 2008. They're parents to daughter Vesper and son Larkin together.

Ron Livingston & Rosemarie DeWitt

The Touchy Feely co-stars have been real-life cuddle buddies for over a decade, marrying in 2009. They have two children together.

Maggie Gyllenhaal & Peter Sarsgaard

So it's true: Life, for two world-class actors, is just quieter in Brooklyn. The longtime New Yorkers got married in 2009 but were together long before that, welcoming daughter Ramona in 2006. Daughter Gloria was born in 2012.

Paul Dano & Zoe Kazan

The Emmy-nominated actors, who also wrote the 2018 drama Wildlife together, have been partners since 2007. They welcomed a daughter, Alma Bay, in 2018.

Helen Mirren & Taylor Hackford

"I think marrying late is a very good idea—it worked out for me," Mirren observed to the Daily Mail's You Magazine. "In general, I'd say it's not a great idea to marry young. And it's a really terrible idea to get married for the frock."

Nevertheless, we're sure she wore something fabulous when she married longtime boyfriend Hackford, director of films including Ray and Proof of Life, in 1997, when she was 52.

Kasi Lemmons & Vondie Curtis-Hall

The actress and director of 2019's Harriet has been married to the Chicago Hope and Marvel's Daredevil actor since 1995 and they have four children together.

Taran Killam & Cobie Smulders

Beautiful women love funny guys from Saturday Night Live. It's just science. But the Stumptown star started dating Killam in 2005, years before he was ready for the not-ready-for-prime-time-players, and married him in 2012. They have two daughters together.

Michael Emerson & Carrie Preston

The actress who played fabulously quirky lawyer Elsbeth on The Good Wife (winning a guest actress Emmy in 2013) and then on The Good Fight was married to eerily quirky Ben from Lost all along! Seriously, since 1998. (Also, Emerson now stars on CBS' Evil, from the creators of The Good Wife.)

Garry Trudeau & Jane Pauley

Of course the former Today host and veteran broadcast journalist would require a keen intellect in a partner—and the creator of long-running comic strip Doonesbury has fit the bill since 1980. They have three children together.

Tracy Letts & Carrie Coon

The Tony-winning playwright and actor has been married to the star of The Leftovers and The Sinner since 2013, undeterred by co-starring in a Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfthat year. They welcomed son Haskell in 2018.

Greg Wise & Emma Thompson

Willoughby ended up with the other Dashwood sister when Sense and Sensibility wrapped, and they've been married since 2003. They're parents to daughter Gaia and in 2003 they informally adopted teenager Tindyebwa, a Rwandan orphan who had been conscripted as a child soldier in the nation's civil war.

Dan Aykroyd & Donna Dixon

The Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters star has been married to the Spies Like Us actress (as well as the "Dream Woman" Garth moons over in Wayne's World) since 1983 and they're parents of three.

Pam Dawber & Mark Harmon

The Mork & Mindy actress married the NCIS star—and 1986's Sexiest Man Alive (as mandated by People)—in 1987 and they have three children together. 

Brian Benben & Madeleine Stowe

The Last of the Mohicans and Twelve Monkeys star may have been out for Revenge in recent years, but for decades she and her actor husband have had a ranch in Texas, where they raised their daughter May.

Phil Donahue & Marlo Thomas

The star of That Girl and Rachel's mom on Friends has been married to the former king of daytime talk shows (Donahue was the Jerry Springer, Geraldo and Maury of the 1970s all rolled into one—and he was on till 1995) since 1980.

Joshua Leonard & Alison Pill

Pill sorta famously was once engaged to Jay Baruchel, but she married one of the stars of The Blair Witch Project. The Devs star and Leonard, who played "Josh" in the 2000 horror classic and has had the busiest acting career of the film's doomed main trio, tied the knot in 2015 and welcomed daughter Wilder Grace Leonard in 2016.

Michelle Hurd & Garrett Dillahunt

The quintessential "That Guy!" from Fear the Walking DeadThe Mindy ProjectJustifiedTwelve Years a Slave and so much more has been married to one of the original stars of Law & Order: SVU (and more recently Star Trek: Picard and Blindspot) since 2007.

Phillipa Soo & Steven Pasquale

First they learned their way around a Broadway stage and then they found each other with the aid of mutual friend and Soo's Hamilton co-star Jonathan Groff. Then they got married in 2017. And...scene.

Claire Forlani & Dougray Scott

Just a couple of lookers from the U.K. (she's English and Scott actually is Scottish) who were introduced by mutual friends and got married in 2007. The Batwoman star has a son and daughter, fraternal twins, from his previous marriage and he and Forlani adopted son Milo together in 2014.

John Corbett & Bo Derek

The Sex and the City actor has been happily partnered with this perfect 10 since around 2002—but they haven't felt the need to say those two little extra words.

"I think when you're beginning a young family and you're going to have children and set up this new family tree branch, [marriage is] obviously a wonderful commitment and it's meaningful," the actress, who was married to John Derek for 22 years before his death in 1998, told Fox News this summer about Corbett. "But for us in our lives, it hasn't been yet."

When she met the actor, she wasn't looking for new love (or expecting to find it again), but there "was just an attraction, a comfort," with Corbett. "He makes me laugh all the time. He's full of life, full of joy. I became attracted to him and I still am. We take things day by day and I think we are still there. We're starting to get a little more settled."

Courtney B. Vance & Angela Bassett

Actually, most people are aware that the award-winning actors are married to each other (and have been since 1997), but we just love them and it's always a treat when they show up at award shows together. They're also parents of twins, daughter Bronwyn Golden and son Slater Josiah, born in 2006.

Christopher Guest & Jamie Lee Curtis

The actor and director of some of the all-time great mockumentaries has been hitched to the original scream queen since 1984—not too long after Curtis saw a picture of Guest in Rolling Stone and decided she was going to marry him. They're parents to daughter Annie and son Thomas together.

Talia Balsam & John Slattery

So, not only were Mad Men's Roger and Mona Sterling married in real life... Balsam was briefly George Clooney's wife, from 1988 until 1993.

But she and Slattery have been spouses since 1998 and are parents to son Harry.

"I just found the right person, you know, I lucked out," Slattery told Closer Weekly in 2019. "I guess marry someone you like. We get along well, we always have, and I guess being in show business, some people say it's difficult. I don't know. We understand the rhythms of this life, which aren't easy sometimes and there's insecurity. You're not sure where you're going to be. So I don't know. I got lucky."

Chloe Bridges & Adam DeVine

Never mind being a Workaholic, DeVine met his match in the Carrie Diaries star when they made The Final Girls together in 2014, and they got engaged in October 2019. 

Even when they aren't the kind of couple always being followed by paparazzi, or setting the Internet ablaze with a single cryptic Instagram post... 

It is indeed nice to know that a significant other who's in the same business just gets it.

(Originally published Aug. 18, 2020, at 7 a.m. PT)

Latest News