Avengers: Endgame dominated the box office in 2019. But the actors behind our favorite
superheros are only human. Once filming wraps, they go home to their families instead of
hanging out at Stark Tower forever. This is the truth about their real-life partners.
Chris Hemsworth's Thor let himself go in Endgame, but in real life, he has no plans to let his
wife, Spanish model-actress Elsa Pataky, go anytime soon. The couple, who have three children
together and reside in Australia, were just a year into their marriage when Hemsworth
became an international star with 2011's Thor. Dealing with that fame put a lot of pressure
on their marriage, but love carried them through. As Pataky told Vogue Australia in 2018,
"We did everything very quickly — I don't know how we survived as a couple [...] We
are very strong personalities but love each other so much. We make it work. So I think
our years together have been great. Every marriage has ups and downs — it's constant
work to be in a successful marriage and stay together forever."
Their biggest disagreement nowadays is about whether Thor's hammer can be considered home
decoration. During a 2019 interview on the Australian radio show Fitzy and Wippa, Pataky
revealed that she has to stop Hemsworth from making the iconic weapon an integral part
of their house's interior design. As she put it,
"Yes, he always picks the best places in the house, and I'm like, 'It's not going there.'
We have five of them from every movie we've done, like, seriously, no."
"Costume; battles. Mjolnir over here, taking a nap."
Legendary actor Michael Douglas was introduced to a new generation of filmgoers when he took
on the role of physicist Hank Pym in 2015's Ant-Man. He then reprised that role in Ant-Man
and the Wasp and made a cameo appearance in Endgame, but he'll probably wrap up his time
in the MCU with the upcoming Ant-Man 3. But what's not ending anytime soon is his longtime
marriage to Oscar-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones. The two even share the same birthday of September
25, although 25 years apart. Douglas popped the question in 1999 after meeting the Welsh
beauty three years earlier, and the two of them have been together ever since.
"I said to her, after about half an hour, 'You know, I'm gonna be the father of your
children.'"
In 2019, Douglas talked with Us Weekly about how they keep their relationship fresh:
"I think it just comes out of courtesy. You know, I think sometimes we take the person
closest to us for granted. I would say sometimes we make more of an effort with strangers than
we do with the person who's closest to us. And I've always tried to remember how fortunate
I am and what an extraordinary lady she is and daily remember [of] that kind of respect."
It's also the little things that make the difference for these two. After Douglas' father,
legendary actor Kirk Douglas, passed away in 2020 at the age of 103, Zeta-Jones brought
a new puppy home to help her husband cope with their loss. That's love, folks.
Chris Pratt got his big break on TV with Parks and Recreation, but after a hardcore workout
regimen, he shot to international fame as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy. During
his time with Marvel, he split from his first wife, Anna Faris, in 2017 and then in 2019,
he married author Katherine Schwarzenegger, daughter of Arnold. The couple are both devout
Christians who bonded over their shared faith. Schwarzenegger is also an ambassador for the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Pratt posted a photo on Instagram
of the pair on their wedding day along with the caption,
"Yesterday was the best day of our lives! We became husband and wife in front of God,
our families and those we love. It was intimate, moving and emotional. We feel so blessed to
begin this new chapter of our lives. We are so thankful to our families and our friends
who stood with us [...] This morning we feel nothing but blessed."
According to Pratt's famous father-in-law, we can expect a few new little Pratts running
around soon.
“I don't push it because I know it's going to happen eventually, and it's up to Chris
and her when they want to do that. So I'm looking forward to it, yes."
Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Janet van Dyne in Ant-Man and the Wasp and appeared briefly
in Endgame, has starred alongside some of the greatest leading men of all time, including
Al Pacino, Bruce Willis, and Harrison Ford. But her real-life leading man is her husband,
writer-producer David E. Kelley. She met him on a blind date in 1993 and then never looked
back. In 2012, on the occasion of their 19th wedding anniversary, she was asked by Parade
Magazine if she could judge whether or not a person is someone who's worth bringing into
her life, to which she replied,
"I haven't met a ton of people who meet that criteria. It takes years for me to trust;
I know that about myself. A lot of it is because I am so private and so reluctant to make myself
vulnerable. You have to be vulnerable to have real intimacy with people. It's a two-way
street, you know? Eventually, I do get there, but not with very many people. I have it with
David, of course."
Pfeiffer had plenty of more loving words to say about her husband, who's known for creating
such TV shows as Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies:
"I never take him for granted. I've never met a person who has more integrity than my
husband. I respect that. There's his humor and intelligence, too, and he's really cute,
all those things — but if you don't respect your partner, you'll get sick of him."
Gwyneth Paltrow lent substantial star power to Iron Man, the first entry in what would
become a multi-billion dollar franchise. Onscreen as Pepper Potts, she was Tony Stark's love
interest, but off screen, her real-life love interest is her husband since 2018, TV writer-producer
Brad Falchuk. Paltrow, who previously had romantic relationships with Brad Pitt, Ben
Affleck, and Chris Martin, once revealed that this marked her first "adult" romance. As
she told The Times of London in 2018,
"In the past, I've been in relationships with men who had intimacy issues, so I could be,
like, 'I'm fine, I'm ready to do this,' and let myself think he's the one with the problem.
In a way, some of the relationships were designed to keep me out of intimacy. Now, for the first
time, I feel I'm in an adult relationship that is sometimes uncomfortable because he
sort of demands a certain level of intimacy and communication that I haven't been held
to before."
Falchuk, who's part of the creative team behind hit shows like American Horror Story and The
Politician, still finds it hard to believe that he's married to Paltrow. He told Harper's
Bazaar in 2020,
"There's a public Gwyneth Paltrow, and there are all these ideas about who that is. And
the reality is, the real Gwyneth Paltrow is so much more amazing."
Rene Russo, who plays Thor's mother Frigga, has been married to writer-director Dan Gilroy
since 1992. And like the supportive partner that she is, she helped him bring to life
his vision for Nightcrawler, his 2014 cinematic masterwork. During an interview that year
with the Los Angeles Times, Russo gushed over her husband's success after years of fighting
uphill to get anything made in Tinseltown:
"I've seen Dan struggle for years. We've been married 21 years. We've popped a bottle of
Champagne on too many occasions that fell apart. I say he's like rust. He never, ever,
ever gives up. Only one time after movie after movie was shut down did he wallow. He said,
'I feel like I'm writing in the sand.' It makes me want to cry! [...] I'm so happy for
him. Look at me, I'm crying. It's ridiculous."
Their real-life and on-screen collaborations have allowed the couple to trust each other
while working together on set, even during times when he worries that her performance
may be a bit too alluring. But even after their disagreements, he comes around to seeing
how right she is.
When Angela Bassett joins the cast of a movie, you know it's going to be great. That was
clearly the case when she played Ramonda, the Queen Mother of Wakanda, in 2018's Black
Panther. But in real life, she's somebody else's queen. That would be actor Courtney
B. Vance, her husband since 1997. But Vance, who won an Emmy for 2016's The People v. O.
J. Simpson: American Crime Story, wasn't readily available for Bassett when they first met.
"I was not attracted to her at all during that time."
Bassett told People Magazine in 2018,
"He had a beautiful, beautiful girlfriend at the time, who was also in drama school
with us. So maybe about 14 years later, our paths crossed here in Los Angeles. And I was
single, he was single. And I had such an appreciation for him over those years — of his consistency,
how he treated other people, of what a supporter he is, what a connector of people and ideas
he is, how passionate he is."
It's no wonder that Bassett fell hard for Vance, and he's still been making it easy
for her after all these years. He told Us Weekly in 2019 about the secret to their relationship:
"It's, 'Yes, dear. How can I help? What do you need me to do?' [...] Our focus is on
our children and what we need to do as a family. Careers and things follow that."
Cobie Smulders has appeared in five MCU films as S.H.I.E.L.D agent Maria Hill. While she's
often hanging around superheroes onscreen, her real-life co-star is her husband, Saturday
Night Live alum Taran Killam. The two met when Smulders attended the taping of a pilot
starring Killam in 2005, and it was full-speed ahead from there. Killam told Us Weekly in
2017,
"It was hot and heavy a month in. She was driving me around and suddenly she did a U-turn
for no reason and I was like, 'What is happening? What are you doing?' And she was like, 'Sorry.
It's something I always do.'"
It turned out that Smolders had turned around because she saw a little girl at a lemonade
stand, which made Killam say,
"I was done. I was done."
The couple married in 2012 and now have two daughters. During a 2019 appearance on Live
with Kelly and Ryan, Smulders couldn't help but gush over her beau.
"We've been together since we were 22 years young. We were babies and we survived, like
we survived our 20s together. I don't know how that's possible."
As S.H.I.EL.D. director Nick Fury, Samuel L. Jackson has been a cornerstone of the MCU
from day one. Although he assembled the greatest team of superheroes, Jackson's true partner
is his wife of 40 years, actress LaTanya Richardson. In 2018, Richardson shared the secret for
their lasting marriage with Essence Magazine:
"No matter what: don't let the sun go down on your wrath."
Then while gritting her teeth, she added,
"I'd be like this. 'OK good night, I love you. I love you.' And I'd go to sleep."
Richardson also explained that their marriage was an act of defiance:
"I'm telling you, we were revolutionaries. We used to say the most revolutionary thing
was to keep a Black family together. So that became our mantra."
During an interview on 60 Minutes in 2019, Jackson credited his wife for saving his life
after he struggled with drugs early on in their relationship and she helped him get
into rehab.
"That's a greater love than I will ever know, 'cause I don't know that I would've done that."
Scarlett Johansson has kicked butt as the deadly assassin Black Widow, and in the process,
she's become a bona fide box office star after a decade of suiting up with the Avengers.
While rising to international fame, she's hosted Saturday Night Live a number of times.
The first was in 2006, where she met Colin Jost, who had recently been hired as a writer.
When she hosted for a third time four years later, he wrote one of her sketches. She told
The Hollywood Reporter about it in 2019:
"It was some dumb parody that he had written, and he was in there partly directing this
segment we had to do. That's my first memory of him."
Then in 2017, the pair were spotted making out at a bar. Two years later, they were engaged.
If anybody had any doubts about how Johansson feels about SNL for bringing Jost into her
life, she put any questions to rest when she hosted for a sixth time in December 2019.
"I just want to say that this place means so much to me. I have so many friends here,
and I met the love of my life here. Merry Christmas!"
Jost is just as smitten. He told Entertainment Tonight in 2017,
"She's wonderful [...] She's pretty cool... It's hard to have a lot of complaints, she's
pretty awesome."
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