Whether they're working together on a set or on a stage, it’s not uncommon for co-stars to start dating. From whirlwind flings to long-lasting marriages, countless relationships have kicked off when actors were working together. But in some of those instances, one or both parties was already spoken for. In the early ‘00s, Stanley Tucci and Edie Falco connected on a personal level while they were starring in an intimate Broadway play together. However, there were some strings, considering Tucci was married to someone else at the time. Read on to learn more about the romance that saw the Devil Wears Prada star leave his wife for the Sopranos actor and what happened after it ended.
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Tucci was married to Kathryn Spath when he met Falco.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesTucci, now 63, married social worker Kathryn Spath in 1995. While she wasn't an actor herself, her first husband, Alexander R. Scott, was the son of stage legend Colleen Dewhurst and Patton star George C. Scott. Tucci and Spath-Tucci welcomed three children together during the course of their marriage; he also co-parented her two kids from her relationship with Scott.
Falco, now 60, was not married when they were cast together in that fateful Broadway show. She and Tucci had gone to the same university—SUNY Purchase—but he had already graduated by the time she started classes. In a 2018 interview with Vulture, Falco recalled seeing posters of Tucci on campus, as he'd already had some success in the business. "Like the captain of the football team that they all still talk about," she said.
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They were cast opposite each other in a play about a one-night stand.
Bruce Glikas/FilmMagicIn 2002, Tucci and Falco were cast as the leads of a new Broadway production of the play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. The play, which was written by Terrence McNally and first opened off-Broadway in 1987, features only two actors playing a pair of middle-aged people who have a one-night-stand and differing interpretations of what the hook-up means for their future.
The play is an intimate one. Tucci and Falco begin the play naked and in bed together.
''This play is about two people who are having sex, and there's sort of no way to make an audience believe it if when you get out of bed you have your clothes on,'' Falco told The New York Times at the time.
''I trust Stan implicitly,” the actor continued of playing such intimacy with her co-star. “He's in love with his wife and has a family, so it's not as weird as it might be were that not the case.''
Tucci left his wife for Falco, though they got back together.
RJ Capak/WireImageNeither Tucci nor Falco ever publicly spoke about the specifics of when, exactly, their on-stage romance turned into a real-life affair, but it did. Tucci left Spath-Tucci, to whom he had been married for seven years at that point, for his co-star. A 2010 profile of Falco in The Guardian notes that she in particular was "admonished" by the media for her role in the affair.
Even with its dramatic beginnings, the relationship did not last long. It's unclear when the new couple split, but Falco confirmed to the The New York Times in 2004 that Tucci was able to fix things with his family.
"We were together and then we broke up," she told the newspaper. "Because there's no way for that to be a good thing. He's a lovely man, and he's back with his wife and kids, and I'm thrilled."
It's the most either of them have ever said publicly about their romance.
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Tucci remarried after Spath-Tucci died in 2009.
David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Paul SmithAfter the affair, Tucci and Spath-Tucci stayed together until her death from breast cancer in 2009.
“You never stop grieving. It's still hard after 11 years. It's still hard. And it will always be hard,” Tucci told CBS News Sunday Morning of the loss in 2021. “But you can't let it... and she would never want any of us to ever wallow in that grief and let it take over our lives. She would never want that. She wasn't like that.”
And the Easy A star did find love again—when Emily Blunt, his co-star in The Devil Wears Prada, invited Tucci to her 2010 wedding to John Krasinski. There, she introduced Tucci to her sister, literary agent Felicity Blunt. Although Tucci has said he initially had reservations about their age gap, they wed in 2012.
“I was kind of afraid to get into a relationship," Tucci said on an 2023 episode of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. "And I kept trying to break it off, because I am 21 years older than [Felicity] is and I didn't want to feel old for the rest of my life. But, I knew this was an incredibly special person."
The pair are still together and have welcomed two children.
