With all the tragedy that inevitably surrounds just about every romance on the show, we thought
it might be nice to take a moment to cherish some of the Game of Thrones actors' real love stories.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little ‘happily ever after’.
It's hard to say who is the more famous partner: Sophie Turner or musician husband Joe Jonas.
The DNCE frontman who rose to superstardom with his brothers
as the Jonas Brothers became acquainted with the actress who played Sansa Stark on
Instagram. Turner reminisced to Harper’s Bazaar in 2019, saying:
"We had a lot of mutual friends, and they'd been trying to introduce us for a long time.
He direct-messaged me one fine day, out of the blue."
The two first went public with an Instagram post in 2017
and then announced their engagement later that year with a photo of Turner's ring.
Jonas and Turner tied the knot in a surprise May 2019 ceremony in Las Vegas,
immediately following that year's Billboard Music Awards. A second, more lavish ceremony was held in
June that year in southern France. Before that ceremony, the pop singer celebrated with a wild
bachelor's weekend in Ibiza. How wild? As youngest brother Nick Jonas revealed on The Tonight Show:
"We had the cops, on the first night, called on us three times."
Joe and Sophie welcomed their first child, daughter Willa, in July 2020, according to TMZ,
though the couple has understandably been keeping the little one out of the spotlight.
Kit Harington told Vogue Italia in 2016 that his favorite memory from shooting the series was,
quote, "the three weeks in Iceland when we were shooting the second season." Why? As Kit put it:
"Because the country is beautiful,
because the Northern Lights are magical, and because it was there that I fell in love."
He admitted to the outlet that "it becomes very easy to fall in love" when you have
feelings for the person who has been cast as your significant other on a television program.
Harington and Rose Leslie, who played love interests
Jon Snow and Ygritte, connected while working on the second season of the show in 2011.
The couple became engaged in July 2017. As People reported,
their 2018 Scottish wedding ceremony was heavily attended by their Game of Thrones co-stars,
including Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams and Peter Dinklage.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau told InStyle in 2014 about the
beginnings of his relationship with wife Nukâka Coster-Waldau, saying:
"I think it took longer for her. I wore her down. I was just crazy in love."
The couple has been married since 1997. Both Nukâka and Nikolaj are natives of Greenland, and
Nukâka was Miss Greenland in 1990, placing 19th in the Miss Universe pageant,
a record-high for the island. Nukâka went on to become an actor and singer.
You might assume that Nukâka was a loyal Game of Thrones viewer, but that is not the case.
According to Nikolaj, his significant other did not watch his massively popular turn
as Jaime Lannister. He explained on The Tonight Show in 2017:
"I dragged her to the premiere of the first [episode], and then since then,
no. She keeps promising that she'll sit down with a friend and watch it."
The pair share two daughters, Filippa and Safina.
Gwendoline Christie, who played the butt-kicking Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones,
and her boyfriend, award-winning fashion designer Giles Deacon, have been involved since 2012,
according to Grazia Daily. Deacon told Grazia in 2018 that he was, quote, "instantly smitten"
and "thought she was extraordinary" from the moment they met. He shared:
"The way she carries herself, it was not like anything I'd seen before."
Outside of dating Christie, he is, as Elle pointed out, perhaps best known for designing
Pippa Middleton's wedding gown. According to GQ, he started his own label, GILES,
in 2003 and was named British Fashion Designer Of The Year in 2006 by the British Fashion Council.
Other accolades on his trophy case include the 2006 French Ministry
of Culture's International Grand Prix, which earned him a prize of $177,000,
and the Designer of the Year award at the annual World Fashion Awards in 2012.
Deacon often designs girlfriend Christie's red carpet appearance looks. At the 2015 Emmys,
Christie premiered a pastel pink gown from
his yet-to-debut Spring/Summer 2016 collection. Christie told InStyle:
"He's one of my favorite designers, and he has an exquisite artistic vision with a brilliant and
highly developed discipline. That kind of artist is rare, and I think it should be celebrated."
Game of Thrones fan favorite Tyrion Lannister may have had several lovers who turned out to be foes
over the years, but actor Peter Dinklage happily eloped in 2005 with theater director Erica Schmidt
and has never looked back. Schmidt has directed several off-Broadway plays,
including 2015's production of Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country,
starring Dinklage and Orange Is the New Black's Taylor Schilling.
When speaking with The Guardian in 2015,
Dinklage opened up about his wife's connection to theater, saying:
"Unlike a lot of other people in our profession where film is the ultimate goal,
theater is sacred to her. It's not entertainment; it's art [...] She's
definitely the artist of the family. I am just the TV actor who pays the bills."
The privacy-craving couple relocated from the crowded New York City neighborhood
of the West Village to the idyllic countryside of upstate New York in 2012,
Rolling Stone reported. The four foot five actor said, quote, "I can't be anonymous
because of my size." His wife noted that even when people don't know who he is:
"they think he's Wee Man from Jackass or they think he's the
guy from In Bruges [BROOZH]. So there's a constant assault."
The couple share two daughters, although neither's name has been shared publicly. Intriguingly,
someone once updated Dinklage's Wikipedia to state that their oldest is called Zelig. Addressing that
rumor, Dinklage simply and amusedly told The Guardian, "Her name is not Zelig”.
Game of Thrones' Ned Stark, about the closest the show came to a wholesome family man, was portrayed
by Sean Bean. In real life, Bean has been married five times, and he has three daughters:
two with his second wife, actress Melanie Hill, and a third with actress Abigail Cruttenden.
Following his fourth divorce, Bean told Croatian magazine Gloria
that while he believes in love, he wasn't so sure about the matrimony thing anymore. As he put it:
"But marriage — that fits some people but obviously not me."
Well, that apparently went out the window when Bean married Ashley Moore
in 2017 after dating for five years. According to The Daily Mail, Bean first encountered Moore
during what they called "a chance meeting" at his favorite drinking haunt in North London.
Bean has pondered whether age and experience have helped his perspective on matters of the heart.
The actor reflected during the Gloria interview, saying:
"You know, you look back on things and think, 'maybe I should have done that in a different way.
Maybe I wouldn't have done that. I'd do that differently now.' But then again,
you're a lot younger, they're different times and you think,
'Would I have done that? Would I really do it any differently?"'
Maisie Williams has lived her love life in the public eye.
Ever since she was spotted with designer
and entrepreneur Reuben Selby in 2019, the two have been a fashion show front row staple. The
couple often appear in coordinated looks, as seen at the Thom Browne Spring 2020 show when
they wore not just matching plaid suits, but identical, boldly applied coral eye shadow.
Selby co-founded a modeling agency called Contact Agency, explaining to Dazed:
"I take pictures myself as well, so I was always doing a similar thing and tried to find
interesting subjects. I've gone down a bit more of a fashion route, because I've
worked with designers casting for shows and for magazine editorials and my own editorials too."
At Paris Fashion Week 2020, Selby debuted his own fashion line. According to Vogue,
his collection, which was a collaboration with Williams,
is comprised of, quote, "genderless clothes with a sustainable focus." Speaking with Vogue,
Selby described Williams' input on the project as helping to inform clothes for:
"a type of woman who wants to wear more comfortable clothes,
and clothes that are potentially more suited to a man."
Given that Arya Stark is a bit of a tomboy, this seems like a case of life imitating art.
In May 2019, Mirror reported that Alfie Allen, Game of Thrones’ Theon Greyjoy,
was first spotted canoodling in public with painter Antonia Showering at the All Points East
Festival. This news came only seven months after his ex-girlfriend, DJ Allie Teilz, gave birth to
their daughter. When the actor posted about the arrival of the baby, the caption initially read:
"With full hearts and overwhelming joy @allieteilz
and I introduce you to the newest member of our family."
Evidently, he removed any mention of Teilz from the post.
Alfie and Showering are relatively private, but the two did appear together at the British
Vogue and Tiffany Fashion and Film afterparty in February 2020. Showering earned a B.A. with honors
from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2016 and an M.A. in Fine Art from Slade School of Fine
Art in 2018. According to art gallery Timothy Taylor's website, her paintings were featured in a
handful of group exhibitions in London in 2018 and received numerous contemporary artist accolades.
Although he played one of the most despicable villains on Game of Thrones, Aidan Gillen
is described by his partner, singer Camille O'Sullivan, as a true gentleman. The Littlefinger
actor and O'Sullivan have been publicly involved since displaying PDA at a U2 concert in Belfast in
November 2015, according to Independent.ie. O’Sullivan told the outlet in 2018:
"I don't think that man would have to work hard to win anyone over.
We clicked, but there was a gentlemanly patience."
The profile went on to reveal that O'Sullivan has a daughter with her ex-boyfriend,
The Waterboys' lead singer Mike Scott. As for Gillen, he himself has two children with his
ex-wife, Olivia O'Flanagan, from whom he has been separated since 2014, according to The Guardian.
O'Sullivan's personal journey took her from
architectural design to cabaret singing, according to Independent. She explained:
"I liked architecture but I loved performing. [In university], though, I hadn't found my own voice.
So I took a year out and went to work in an architects' practice in Berlin."
In 1999, however, she was hospitalized for nearly a year after a near-fatal car accident.
The ordeal convinced her to change career course. She recalled:
"I had to learn to walk and use my hands again. But it was a turning point.
I stopped thinking 'What if?' and decided to leave architecture to dedicate myself to cabaret."
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