She is the proud recipient of an Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe among her many accolades.
And helping Olivia Colman build her stellar career has been her equally creative and supportive husband, Ed Sinclair.
The director has worked behind the scenes to help shape some of her most successful projects to date.
So it’s clear that Olivia and Ed have a successful working relationship.
Yet last week, Olivia raised eyebrows when she revealed she has always described herself as the ‘gay man’ in their marriage.
So what is the secret to Olivia and Ed’s 25-year marriage?
Olivia Colman’s unique approach to ‘surviving’ her 25-year marriage after revealing she feels non-binary and describes herself as a ‘gay man’ to husband Ed Sinclair (pictured in 2022)
Last year, Olivia revealed the surprising secret behind her long-lasting marriage, claiming that they don’t argue.
‘It’s our 25th wedding anniversary next year. We’ve been together 31 years,’ Olivia told the Good Hang podcast.
Asked why she thinks they’ve lasted so long, she replied, ‘We’re not big fighters, which apparently isn’t very healthy.
‘We have learned over the years – but really late on actually – to sometimes [think], if that was annoying, just wait.
‘And it doesn’t work for everyone, I know that, but I think it’s much better to wait until the calmer moments to go, “Can we talk about that moment? I did find that a little weird and is that OK that I’m saying this and yes I was a bit cross that day…”‘
On how she ‘survived’ marriage, she told The Guardian that they shrug off various annoyances, explaining: ‘It’s been 30 years. It’s not bad to be a bit annoyed with each other.’
The actress, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2019 for her role in The Favourite opposite Emma Stone, added she’s still physically attracted to Ed all these years later.
‘He’s my best friend and I fancy him, which is quite nice,’ she said.
Last year, Olivia revealed the surprising secret behind her long-lasting marriage, claiming that they don’t argue (pictured in August 2025)
Olivia previously said he plays a very supporting role at home.
‘He’s always there when I’m feeling like I did a bad job or something, so we’re there to pick each other up,’ she has said.
Joking about his career switch from actor to screenwriter, she added: ‘We worked out very early on that it’s much better if he’s a writer, I’m an actor and we don’t talk about it. It’s much easier not to talk about the work.’
Olivia and Ed met in the 1990s while attending school in Cambridge.
They fell in love while rehearsing for a Cambridge Footlights production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Table Manners.
The actress revealed she spent six weeks memorising the words to a song he liked and also learnt his timetable.
‘I sort of stalked him,’ she told Bustle. ‘Which I don’t condone. It did work in our case.
‘I remind him every day that he is a very lucky man.’
At the time, Olivia was studying to teach at Homerton College, Cambridge, while Ed initially studied law at Cambridge University.
The couple are parents to three children: two sons, Hall, 18, and Finn, 20, and a 10-year-old daughter
Ed soon shifted to the arts and attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to pursue acting.
He’s appeared in small roles, most notably in the BBC’s Look Around You, before becoming a screenwriter and film producer.
Ed wrote the 2021 Sky drama series Landscapers starring Olivia and David Thewlis, and recently produced The Roses starring Olivia and Benedict Cumberbatch as a husband and wife at war.
Recalling the first time she saw him, Olivia told Them: ‘I’d gone to two of the rehearsals and there was no one particularly fanciable there. Then I walked in and I saw his left-hand profile.
‘At the time he was smoking a ciggie, his feet were crossed, and he’s got this lovely bump in his nose and I saw his side profile and just went, “Oh my God, I’m going to marry him.”
‘I had proper thunderbolts: that’s him, that’s him! Poor thing, he didn’t know.’
In a typically self-deprecating manner, Olivia claimed that while she vividly remembers the first time she met Ed, the feeling wasn’t mutual. ‘He genuinely can’t remember it,’ she said.
She previously told the Daily Mail in 2013: ‘My husband and I were very lucky. We met when we had nothing and we loved each other then. So we were all right.
‘We were 20 and he was also an actor. If you meet at that age then you’re fine.’
Last year, Olivia admitted that she’s scared of sex scenes because it feels like she’s cheating on her husband
The couple are parents to three children: two sons, Hall, 18, and Finn, 20, and a 10-year-old daughter.
Their firstborn, Finn, was born in 2005 while Hall joined the family in 2007.
Their daughter came along in 2015 while Oliva was filming The Night Manager.
Opening up about the challenges of filming while pregnant, she told Radio Times: ‘I just can’t retain my lines like I normally would.
‘I’ve got a bit of nappy brain going on.’
Despite being a big name herself, the pair have opted to keep their children away from the spotlight.
‘Ed being at home also means that he can look after the children if I’m away, and he’s a far better parent than me,’ she joked to the Daily Mail.
‘So, although I miss the kids terribly if I’m away working, I know our little boys are in the best possible hands.
‘When I get back they go, “Oh no, she’s not going to cook is she? She’s bound to burn something!”‘
While they spent many years living in London, the pair moved to the countryside in Norfolk during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The actress explained at the time how paparazzi made living in a major city ‘difficult’.
She told Vogue: ‘Yeah. I was scared. At one point, there were two cars chasing us and I was having a sort of meltdown, terrified.
‘I was crying and they were laughing.’
It comes after Olivia said she has always ‘felt sort of nonbinary’ as the actress opened up about her identity
Last year, Olivia admitted that she’s scared of sex scenes because it feels like she’s cheating on her husband.
Olivia shared on Good Hang: ‘Anything where I have to show any skin, I don’t like. Pretending to have sex… I don’t like it. I feel like I’m being unfaithful.
‘Even when they go, ‘You can wear your jeans,’ or a cushion between you. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that.’
Olivia and Amy both applauded the actors who take on the task comfortably, with the hot saying: ‘The people that are good at it, I’ll watch them all day long, and they’re comfy. But the on-screen orgasm…’
The actress said: ‘No, absolutely not… Thank God for intimacy coordinators,’ before mentioning that she’s been told to just imagine the sun is hitting her face when she’s supposed fake an orgasm.
Last week, Olivia said she has always ‘felt sort of nonbinary’ as she opened up about her identity in a new interview.
The actress said she has never felt comfortable with rigid gender roles, including in her own marriage.
The star, who is promoting her new role in queer film Jimpa, explained: ‘Throughout my whole life, I’ve had arguments with people where I’ve always sort of felt nonbinary.
Olivia’s comments come as she stars in new queer film Jimpa, playing a mother who takes her nonbinary child to visit their gay father abroad (pictured with co-star John Lithgow)
‘I’ve never felt massive feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man.
‘And he goes, “Yeah I get that.” And so I do feel at home and at ease.’
She added to Them: ‘I don’t really spend a whole lot of time with people who are very staunchly heterosexual… The men I know and love are very in touch with all sides of themselves.
‘I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the “strong one”, or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I’ve always felt like that.
‘I’m not alone in saying, “I don’t feel like it’s binary.” And I loved that. I came away from making this film with, yeah, I knew I wasn’t alone.
Nonbinary is a term used to describe a person’s gender identity that falls outside the traditional male and female binary.
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