Tom Bateman Wife: Inside His Relationship With Star Wars Actress Daisy Ridley
Tom Bateman has returned to the romantic spotlight with The Love Hypothesis, but there is an unexpected real-life connection behind his casting. The British actor is married to Daisy Ridley, the actress who became a global star playing Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
That relationship makes Bateman’s role as Dr. Adam Carlsen especially interesting. Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling novel began its life as Reylo fan fiction, drawing inspiration from the dynamic between Ridley’s Rey and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren before eventually becoming a completely separate university romance. Years later, Ridley’s real-life husband ended up playing the male lead in its film adaptation.
It is the kind of Hollywood coincidence that almost sounds planned, except Bateman has explained that neither he nor Ridley had really followed the fan-fiction history before he became involved in the film.
Who Is Tom Bateman’s Wife?
Tom Bateman’s wife is English actress Daisy Ridley. Born on April 10, 1992, Ridley is 34 years old as of September 2026 and has built a career that reaches well beyond the role that first made her famous.
Ridley became internationally recognized after being cast as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, released in 2015. She returned for The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, becoming one of the central faces of the franchise’s sequel era.
Her work since then has been quite varied. Ridley has appeared in films including Chaos Walking, The Marsh King’s Daughter, Sometimes I Think About Dying and Young Woman and the Sea. She also starred alongside Bateman in Murder on the Orient Express, the movie that eventually changed both of their personal lives.
Bateman, meanwhile, was born on March 15, 1989, in Oxford, England, making him 37 in 2026. His credits include Da Vinci’s Demons, Jekyll & Hyde, Cold Pursuit, Death on the Nile, Based on a True Story and Hedda.
How Did Tom Bateman and Daisy Ridley Meet?
Bateman and Ridley met while filming Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s famous mystery.
Ridley played Mary Debenham, while Bateman appeared as Bouc. What started as a friendship between co-stars slowly developed into something more.
Ridley later revealed a funny detail about how the romance began. She said she and Bateman became close friends almost immediately, but she initially did not think of him as a romantic possibility. Their co-star Penélope Cruz apparently made a comment about Bateman that caused Ridley to reconsider how she saw him.
That small observation helped change things. Ridley has said that she and Bateman have essentially been together since that period.
Unlike many celebrity couples who regularly post about their relationship, the pair kept almost everything private. They rarely discussed one another publicly and did not turn their relationship into part of their public image.
When Did Tom Bateman and Daisy Ridley Get Married?
For several years, fans were unsure about the couple’s exact relationship status.
Engagement speculation became particularly strong after Ridley was photographed wearing a ring. Marriage rumors followed, but neither actor was interested in confirming or denying every report that appeared.
Ridley finally confirmed in an interview published in January 2023 that she was married to Bateman. Public records and entertainment databases generally place their marriage in 2022, although the couple has never shared many details about their wedding.
The secrecy was not unusual for them. Ridley has repeatedly preferred keeping her private life separate from her career, while Bateman has also spoken in the past about being naturally private.
Rather than staging a major celebrity wedding announcement, they quietly moved into married life and confirmed it later.
Why Is Daisy Ridley Connected to The Love Hypothesis?
This is where Bateman’s latest film becomes unusually connected to his own marriage.
The Love Hypothesis was published as a novel by Ali Hazelwood in 2021, but the story had earlier roots in Star Wars fandom. Hazelwood had written fan fiction inspired by Rey and Kylo Ren, a pairing fans often call “Reylo.”
The characters eventually evolved far beyond their Star Wars inspiration. Olive Smith became a Ph.D. candidate working in science, while Adam Carlsen became an intimidating professor who unexpectedly finds himself participating in Olive’s fake-dating plan.
Still, readers familiar with the story’s history knew about the Reylo connection.
That meant casting Daisy Ridley’s husband as Adam was always going to attract attention.
Bateman said that when his casting came together, he mentioned the strange connection to Ridley. Her reaction suggested she was only vaguely aware that a romance novel had grown out of fan fiction involving her Star Wars character. Bateman himself had not understood the full connection either.
Lili Reinhart, who plays Olive, has also said that people sometimes assume Bateman and Ridley must have known all about the book’s background beforehand. According to Reinhart, that was simply not the case.
It makes the casting even more amusing. Ridley played the character who helped inspire one side of the original fan pairing, while years later her husband became the male romantic lead in the finished movie adaptation.
Tom Bateman Stars Opposite Lili Reinhart
The Love Hypothesis arrived on Prime Video on September 23, 2026, with Bateman playing Dr. Adam Carlsen opposite Lili Reinhart as Olive Smith.
The story follows Olive, a biology Ph.D. candidate whose attempt to help her best friend leads to an impulsive kiss with Adam. The awkward moment turns into an agreement to pretend they are dating.
Naturally, the fake relationship becomes increasingly difficult to keep fake.
Reinhart is also an executive producer on the adaptation, while Claire Scanlon directed the movie. Rachel Marsh plays Anh, Nicholas Duvernay appears as Jeremy, with Jaboukie Young-White and Arty Froushan also among the supporting cast.
Bateman and Reinhart have spoken about wanting the relationship between Olive and Adam to feel believable instead of simply copying every moment from the novel. Their chemistry became a major part of bringing the popular romance story to the screen.
Tom Bateman and Daisy Ridley Have Worked Together Too
Although Bateman and Ridley protect their personal life, they are not completely opposed to working together.
One of their most interesting collaborations was the psychological thriller Magpie.
The project started from an original story idea developed by Ridley, while Bateman wrote the screenplay. Ridley starred as Anette, a woman whose marriage begins falling apart after her daughter gets a part in a movie alongside a glamorous actress. Both Ridley and Bateman were also involved as producers.
The film gave them an opportunity to collaborate creatively without making their actual marriage the subject.
Ridley has even joked about the contrast between Magpie’s unhappy marriage and her real relationship. People close to the couple apparently view Ridley and Bateman as particularly happy together, which made working on such a troubled fictional marriage a little ironic.
A Private Marriage With an Unexpected Hollywood Connection
Tom Bateman and Daisy Ridley have managed to do something fairly unusual for two recognizable actors. Their relationship has lasted for years without becoming a constant source of public updates.
They met on a major film set, began dating quietly, married without a big public announcement and continued building separate careers while occasionally finding projects they could share.
Now The Love Hypothesis has added another strange chapter to their story.
Bateman playing Adam Carlsen would already have been a major romantic lead for the actor. The fact that the novel can trace part of its creative history back to fan fiction involving his wife’s Star Wars character gives the casting a coincidence few movie studios could have deliberately created.
Ridley did not personally inspire the finished character of Olive Smith, and The Love Hypothesis is no longer a Star Wars story. Still, Rey was part of the creative starting point that eventually led Hazelwood toward the novel readers know today.
So, for anyone wondering who Tom Bateman’s wife is, the answer has an entertaining connection to his newest movie. He is married to Daisy Ridley, the Star Wars actress he met nearly a decade ago on Murder on the Orient Express, and whose most famous character happens to sit somewhere in the distant creative history of The Love Hypothesis.
