Holland Taylor isn’t particularly interested in mixing work with pleasure by sharing the screen with her longtime partner, Sarah Paulson.
“We don’t find that a very appealing idea,” Taylor, 83, admitted on Sirius XM’s Bevelations on Friday, October 16. “A number of people have asked us, because we say this is kind of weird. I mean, I don’t know. It’s just very, very weird.”
Taylor and Paulson, 51, have been together for 11 years, having connected through social media in 2015 after originally meeting at a dinner party a decade earlier.
The subject of the two never working together came up when SiriusXM host Bevy Smith mentioned that many other famous couples have shared the screen — including Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee collaborating on multiple films for director Spike Lee and the late Paul Newman directing his wife, Joanne Woodward, in several movies.
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor’s romance has been one for the ages — and it all started with a little social media flirtation! Paulson and Taylor met in 2005 — an entire decade before they actually began dating. The lovebirds, who first crossed paths at a party, were both in committed relationships at the time. However, the sparks were undeniable. […]
“I think we are such a curiosity to people that I think it’s confusing,” Taylor pointed out. “I think it would be, people say, ‘Why are they together anyway?’ And then it just screws up the whole show.”
Taylor offered a similar explanation for her reluctance to work with Paulson in 2024 when she told Variety that she “can’t imagine” it would ever be appealing.
“I don’t like seeing couples doing things because I’m always aware of the coupledom,” the Two and a Half Men actress noted.
Away from the screen, the pair walked the red carpet together in September at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles for the premiere of Taylor’s Apple TV+ comedy series Brothers, in which she stars opposite Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. Taylor was also by Paulson’s side when the American Horror Story alum received her Hollywood Walk of Fame star in December 2025.
Paulson and Taylor, who have a nearly 32-year age difference, have both referred to their life together as “unconventional,” particularly because they live in separate homes.
“We don’t live together, that’s the sort of secret,” Paulson revealed on the “Smartless” podcast in May 2024. “Holland and I, we spend plenty of time together, but we don’t live in the same house.”
She added, “We’ve been together for a long time now, and I think part of it has to do with, we’re together when we wanna be and we’re not when we don’t.”
Asked whether it might be easier to sleep in separate bedrooms in the same dwelling, Paulson replied, “No, because we like to fall asleep holding hands, Holland and I. We sleep holding hands. I like to sleep near her. I don’t want to be around her the rest of the time. Just kidding!”
Taylor also previously shut down the possibility of ever tying the knot with Paulson during a 2024 interview with Andy Cohen on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy.
“I don’t think [we’ll get married]. We’ve never talked about it with any interest,” she explained. “It doesn’t seem to mean to us what it means to a lot of people. … We would [get married] if we wanted to.”