Paul Dano’s Girlfriend Zoe Kazan: Everything To Know About ‘The Fabelmans’ Star’s Relationship

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• Paul Dano is an actor, known for his roles in ‘The Batman’ and ‘The Fabelmans.’
• He’s been dating Zoe Kazan since 2007.
• Zoe Kazan is also an actress, who has starred in ‘Ruby Sparks’ and ‘The Big Sick.’

Paul Dano has been a steadily rising star for years, with major movies under his belt recently, he’s surely only going to be more and more successful. Early audiences may have been introduced to the actor, 38, in the 2006 comedy Little Miss Sunshine, but he’s starred in a number of critically-acclaimed projects like There Will Be Blood (2007), 12 Years A Slave (2013), and most recently The Batman (2022). He’s long been a celebrated actor, and he’s been recognized with an Emmy nomination for his performance in 2018’s Escape At Dannemora.

Throughout much of his career, Paul has had Zoe Kazan by his side. The Love And Mercy star has been in a relationship with the actress and writer, 39, since 2007, and they have a family together. Even though they’re not married, their 15 years together have shown their commitment to one another. Find out everything you need to know about Zoe and her relationship with Paul here.

How Did Paul and Zoe meet?

While Paul and Zoe both have starred in a variety of movies, their relationship actually began when they worked on a play together. The pair both starred as romantic leads in the Ethan Hawke-directed play Things We Want in October 2007, via Playbill. Because of their job, the couple’s first kiss actually happened while the two were rehearsing for the show. Since the show, the pair have gone on to act alongside each other in a few different projects, like the movies Meek Cutoff and Ruby Sparks.

The Happythankyoumoreplease actress opened up about how kissing on-stage and screen is very different in a 2012 interview with W Magazine. “Even when Paul and I met five years ago, we were doing a play together and falling in love and we kissed on stage before we had ever kissed in real life. When we did kiss in real life, it felt totally different. And when we did this movie, we would finish a take and then sneak a kiss afterwards. On camera, the other person is coming towards you not because they want to, but because the script says so,” she said.

Zoe is an actress.

As mentioned above, Zoe is also an actress. She’s had her fair share of TV, movie, and stage roles throughout her career. After meeting her love Off-Broadway, she made her Broadway debut the following year in a production of Come Back, Little Sheeba. That same year she also starred in The Seagull. She returned to Broadway in 2010 to play Marilyn in A Behanding in Spokane. The same year she also starred in a critically-acclaimed production of Angels In America.

Some of Zoe’s major film roles include playing Emily in The Big Sick (2017). She also starred as Alice Longabaugh  in “The Gal Who Got Rattled” segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). One of her biggest roles was starring alongside Paul in Ruby Sparks (2012), which she also wrote. She opened up about having to separate the art from herself in the aforementioned W interview. “Very early on, I showed Paul a couple pages of the script and he asked if I was writing the storyline for us. When he said that, it seemed like that was exactly what I was doing. But then I tried to put it out of my head as much as I could, because when actors try to write for themselves or the people they know, vanity can come in,” she said.

She’s also a writer.

Besides being an actress, Zoe is also an accomplished screenwriter and playwright. As mentioned, Zoe wrote the script for Ruby Sparks. Her parents Robin Swicord and Nicholas Kazan are actually both screenwriters. They co-wrote the cult classic Matilda (1996), and Robin has written tons of hits like Little Women (1994) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).

Besides Ruby Sparks, Zoe also wrote the 2018 drama Wildlife, which Paul directed. She’s also written the plays Absalom (2009), We Live Here (2011), Trudy And Max In Love (2014), and After The Blast (2017).

They have two children.

After over 10 years of dating, Paul and Zoe welcomed their first daughter together in 2018. While the couple hasn’t revealed their children’s names, Paul did open up about being a new father on The Tonight Show, after she was born. “I’m so tired, and I’m so in love. It’s so extreme,” he said. “Your heart has gone supernova in one sense.”Zoe announced that they had another child when she appeared on Today promoting She Said in November 2022.

They’ve been open about their home life.

Before they welcomed their second child, Zoe and Paul have been open about what it’s like to be parents and working actors. Zoe shouted out their nannies and other babysitters in a tweet in January 2020. “Paul and I have only been parents for a year & four months and we have employed at least a dozen women over three continents in that time, all of whom have made it possible for us to do our jobs; this is not to mention our family & friends who have pitched in. the debt is immense,” she wrote.

When speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoe was also straightforward about the difficulties that come with both parenting and working from home in a July 2020 thread. “I don’t feel like I have much to say here right now but I do want to reach my arms out to every parent with small kids trying to work from home in these last months,” she said. “I’m so lucky to have my work and to have my child and to have my health and to have my partner, and for one million other reasons. But the reality of trying to do two things at once…all the time… I think about you all out there, doing your impossible juggle, and I send love.”

Paul spoke about the family making sure to find time for themselves during the pandemic in a March 2022 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “The first part of the pandemic was one of the only times where work didn’t seem to be a part of my life,” he said. “We shared all meal times, but we each needed a point of the day where we weren’t playing 2-year-old games.”