Who Is Emily Mortimer's Husband, Alessandro Nivola?

Even if their names don't ring a bell, it's likely that you've seen Emily Mortimer and her husband, Alessandro Nivola, on the big screen at least a few times. For her part, Mortimer has appeared in "The Pink Panther," "Mary Poppins Returns," "Lars and the Real Girl," and "Notting Hill," just to name a few, per TV Guide. At some point in the late 1990s, the couple met in a manner usually only reserved for romantic comedies.

As Nivola told Inquirer.Net, he was living in Los Angeles next door to Leonard Cohen's son, Adam. At one point, Adam gave him the phone number of a woman who had rejected him, telling Nivola that she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. Only days later, Nivola realized that this very woman would be his fellow cast member in the film "Love's Labour's Lost." The moment he got on set, he went to seek out this beautiful woman. As you might have already guessed, this woman is Mortimer. The pair married just a few years later, in 2003.

Apparently, the creativity and passion that Mortimer and Nivola possess as actors make their marriage even sweeter. "It's a very emotionally volatile job and I think we are both difficult to live with when we're preparing for roles," Nivola told The Guardian in 2019. "The upside is that you're with somebody who is incredibly passionate and creative and original-minded and curious about people and characters in ways that sometimes people in more conventional jobs aren't."

Alessandro Nivola was born in Boston in 1972 and graduated from Yale University before pursuing his first big-screen acting role in 1997's "Face/Off." From there, Nivola went on to star in many other prestigious but low-key films like "Disobedience," "Chimerica," "Selma," and "Laurel Canyon."

Earlier this year, Nivola spoke to GQ about his early issues with finding success on the big screen. "I counted 12 movies that I made — some of which have big movie stars in them — that never got released," Nivola told GQ. "But on the whole, the movies where I've played supporting roles were where I was trying to mine more from characters than was written, and there's something exciting about that."

This year might just prove to be the biggest year yet for Nivola, who appears in the highly-anticipated "Sopranos" prequel, "The Many Saints of Newark." Nivola portrays Dickie Moltisanti, the uncle who Tony Soprano idolized in his youth, per GQ. The film debuted in theaters October 1.

Aside from acting, Nivola and his wife also run a production company together, King Bee Productions. The couple originally created the production company to produce the British comedy series "Doll & Em," says The Guardian. Together they are parents to 18-year-old Sam and 11-year-old May Rose, who are set to appear in "White Noise" alongside Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig next year, according to People.