The hottest couples in the arts today: From Annie Clark and Cara Delevingne to Alfie Brown and Jessie Cave
When two heads are better than one
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As a writer and star of Orange is the New Black, Morelli and Wiley have claim to be TV’s coolest couple – after getting together in a case of love imitating art. Morelli was married to a man when she started working on the show; however as she wrote the central Piper/Alex lesbian romance, she began to realise she was gay herself. After amicably divorcing her husband, she started dating Wiley, who plays inmate Poussey Washington; Morelli has explained that “in Piper and Alex, I’d found a mouthpiece for my own desires and a glimmer of what my future could look like … I went through it all on set: I fell in love with a woman, and I watched my life play out on screen.”
Alfie Brown (comedian) and Jessie Cave (actress/comedian)
How these two funny people got together sounds like the premise for a comedy itself. The pair had a one-night stand – and she got pregnant; deciding to give it go, they fell in love while starting a family. And the happy accident has certainly proved a rich source of material for both their careers: Brown’s most recent stand-up show was inspired by his unexpected fatherhood, while Cave also made a solo show about how falling in love for the first time while preggers led to crazy jealous stalking of Brown’s former girlfriends. The pair have also done a YouTube series of shorts, Chop Logic, about their couples’ rows, and – whad’ya know? – are planning to turn their story into a romcom film.
Annie Clark (musician) and Cara Delevigne (model/actress)
Is there a hipper couple alive than Delevigne – the world’s hottest model who turned her back on the catwalk for an acting career – and Clark, aka glam guitar virtuoso St Vincent? We think not, and they thus merit inclusion despite not having collaborated yet; until then, we will make do with snaps of them holding hands on fashion show frows in cleverly co-ordinated black leather outfits: super cool, and super cute. They even rocked matching bandanas recently – what other couple has the style witchcraft to pull that look off?
Kate Fleetwood (actress) and Rupert Goold (director)
How’s this for written-in-the-stars: this theatrical power couple met on a production of … Romeo & Juliet. That was in 2001; now they’re married, with two children. After a string of hits with touring company Headlong, Goold became artistic director of the Almeida, in 2013, while Kate Fleetwood is one of theatreland’s leading ladies, and was nominated for a Tony for playing Lady Macbeth in 2008 – directed by Goold. The Scottish Play is hardly a portrait of a happy marriage, but her other half clearly likes to bring out Fleetwood’s dark side: last year, he directed her as Medea, a woman who kills her children in revenge against her husband. Gulp.
Natalia Osipova and Sergei Polunin (ballet dancers) Two of the best young dancers in the world right now recently confirmed they were in a relationship offstage as well as on. Sweet, no? Except classical ballet companies won’t have a couple as their lead dancers, Sergei Polunin has claimed, because they think it gives them too much power; the Royal Ballet has, naturally, denied that any such policy exists. Happily for audiences hungry to see the chemistry sizzling between Royal Ballet lead Osipova and “bad boy of ballet” Polunin, the pair have come up with an ingenious solution: they’ve moved into contemporary dance. They are to perform together this summer in Hotel Flamingo, a prequel to A Streetcar Named Desire.
Magdalena Kozena (soprano) and Simon Rattle (conductor)
This romance first blossomed in the opera house: they met when he conducted her in Mozart’s Idomeneo at Glyndebourne in 2003. Their whirlwind affair led to the end of both their marriages, and stirred much gossip – but theirs proved to be both an enduring love and fruitful creative partnership. Kozena has spoken about enjoying their frequent collaborations, saying “it’s a relief knowing I don’t have to be scared of the big maestro figure”, though they have a strict approach to work/life balance: no discussion of classical music at home.
Noah Baumbach (writer/ director) and Greta Gerwig (writer/actress)
These two are fast becoming the indie film royalty, having met when she starred in his 2010 film Greenberg. Today, she’s both his leading lady and writing partner, bringing a gawky vivacity to their tales of a lost twentysomething (Frances Ha) and a flaky thirtysomething (Mistress America). Just don’t call her his muse, or imply he’s “made” her career. “I’m lucky to find collaborators … but I don’t need a man, and I would have done it anyway,” she recently said.
Tim Grayburn (advertising exec turned performer) and Bryony Kimmings (performance artist) When Kimmings discovered that her boyfriend suffered from depression … well, doing a show about the topic seemed like the best response. Grayburn had hidden his condition for a decade and Kimmings realised men’s mental health was something we all needed to be better at talking about. So, he ditched his advertising job to develop and perform a show with her that explored the subject. Fake It ’Til You Make It was the toast of Edinburgh last summer, before transferring to London, by which time Kimmings was performing while very pregnant. They go back out on a post-baby tour in March.
Neil Gaiman (graphic novelist) and Amanda Palmer (musician)
Like many a modern relationship, this one began on the internet: Gaiman blogged about liking one of Palmer’s songs; she emailed him to say thanks. After becoming friends IRL, attraction grew, and finally blossomed into a relationship that’s seen them crowned “geek royalty”, with armies of devoted fans on both sides. Still, their marriage is as unconventional as you would expect: she organised a surprise flash-mob wedding, and they have a polyamorous, open relationship. It’s a professional one too: the pair perform evenings of songs and readings together.
Gregory Doran (director) and Antony Sher (actor)
One’s the artistic director of the RSC, the other is one of our finest Shakespearean actors; they’ve been together for nearly 30 years, ever since meeting on a production of The Merchant of Venice when Doran was also an actor. They formed a civil partnership on the first day possible, in 2005 – deeming it an important political statement as well as an act of love. Last year was a bumper one for their working collaboration: Doran directed Sher as Falstaff in Henry IV Parts I and II, and as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. This summer, they collaborate again for what’s sure to be a monumental King Lear. They’ve learnt not to bring work home with them, however: Doran has confessed to once flinging around some crockery when discussing Titus Andronicus after one too many G&Ts ….
Zadie Smith and Nick Laird (authors)
In 2000, White Teeth made Smith a publishing sensation. If people were sniffy when her husband followed suit with a writing career, they soon got over it: his poetry collections To a Fault and Go Giants were heaped with praise. The literary duo met – where else? – at Cambridge; she submitted a story to a writing magazine that he was editing, although they didn’t get together until their mid-twenties. They now live in New York, both teaching creative writing and raising their two children. Sweetly, the pair always edit each other’s work – and they are working on an intriguing film project together: a sci-fi slated to star Robert Pattinson.
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