When she’s not falling for a man made of wicker on-screen, Olivia Colman is happily married to her real-life leading man, Ed Sinclair, who is her husband of more than 25 years.
The Oscar-winning actor called it love at first sight when she met Sinclair. “I immediately thought, that’s the person I’m going to marry. I absolutely threw myself in—I didn’t play it cool,” she told The Big Issue.
They met in the ’90s in a college drama club and married in 2001. Since then, the couple has welcomed three children and built a life together in the English countryside. Sinclair is also a familiar face beside Colman on the red carpet, proudly supporting her at premieres and award shows—and the pair has even worked together, too.
So, who is Olivia Colman’s husband? Ahead, see everything to know about Ed Sinclair and his more than two-decade-long relationship with Colman.
He’s a screenwriter and producer.
Sinclair is a screenwriter and producer whose work spans film and television. He notably wrote HBO’s Landscapers, which stars Colman, and won three BAFTA Craft Awards and earned a nomination for Best Miniseries at the BAFTA TV Awards. He also serves as creative director of South of the River Pictures.
Though he’s now best-known for his behind-the-scenes work, Sinclair initially pursued acting. In a 2013 interview with The Daily Mail, Colman shared: “For Ed, the work just stopped. But actually I think he was quite relieved because he always wanted to write and he’s brilliant at it.”
He met Olivia while studying at Cambridge University.
Colman and Sinclair’s love story began in the 1990s, when the two met while studying at Cambridge University. Both performed in a student production of Alan Ayckbourn’s play Table Manners at the Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club, where Colman, then 20, immediately took notice of her future husband.
In an interview with The Telegraph, she recalled watching Sinclair walk into the room and thinking, “There’s the bloke I’m going to marry.” At the time, Sinclair was a third-year law student, though he would eventually trade his legal studies for a career in writing and acting. Colman, meanwhile, was pursuing acting herself.
The Wicker star has talked about how she memorized Sinclair’s schedule, as well as the lyrics to the songs he liked while trying to get his attention. “I sort of stalked him,” she joked, adding, “Which I don’t condone. It did work in our case. I remind him every day that he is a very lucky man.”
They married in 2001.
