Rachel McAdams burst onto the scene back in 2004 as the iconic plastic, Regina George, in Mean Girls, and she kept going up from there. The actress has starred in a number of critical and commercial successes including Midnight in Paris, Sherlock Holmes, and, of course, her role as Dr. Christine Palmer in the MCU. McAdams is also known for a number of romances including the classic Nicholas Sparks book adaption The Notebook, but who is the actress’ real-life sweetheart?
McAdams has had a number of high-profile relationships over the years including some of her onscreen co-stars such as Ryan Gosling, where the chemistry leaped from the screen in The Notebook and spilled over into real life. The two dated for roughly four years, with a break-up and make-up, also involved, but decided to call it quits in 2008. Since then McAdams has been linked to Michael Sheen, Kit Harrington, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Taylor Kitsch, a veritable whose who of Hollywood’s leading men.
Her current relationship has flown a little more under the radar, as she has been with current partner director Jamie Linden since 2016. The pair have kept their relationship out of the spotlight for the most part, having rarely been photographed together and neither one of them discussing their relationship publicly. We do know that they have two children together, a son and a daughter. We all know a fair bit about the Mean Girls actress, but what about Linden?
Linden was born and raised in Florida, growing up not too far away from Orlando. He went on to study at Florida State University’s College of Communication majoring in marketing and media production. His arrival and eventual residency in Hollywood were brought about after he and some friends got tickets for the game show The Price is Right, which would come to be a crucial moment in his career. He spoke about this moment with Florida State University’s CCI Alumnus News, saying, “I won $5,000 and a Tuscan wine server cart. The money actually helped me stay in California longer than I had planned.”
After working as an assistant to directors as well as reading feature film screenplays, and getting fired a few times (hey it happens to the best of us) he decided to write his own screenplay, Things to Do Before I Die with his friend Cory Hulms. The script must have had some impact because Warner Bros. gave the pair a deal to write another script. At this time, Linden had become obsessed with the story of the Southern Airways Flight 932 crash that killed many of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team.
He wrote a screenplay for We Are Marshall after visiting many of the survivors and the families of the victims of the crash wanting to do their story justice. The film went on to be released in 2006 starring Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, Anthony Mackie, and Ian McShane. Since then he has written the screenplay for another Nicholas Sparks adaptation, Dear John, as well as the film 10 Years, both of which starred Channing Tatum. The pair are set to join again once more for the film Soundtrack of Silence, with the screenplay written by Linden, though nothing has been heard about the project since it was announced back in 2019.
His relationship with McAdams has been a very private one, with the two keeping it very much out of the public eye. They have never walked the red carpet together. They were first spotted together in May 2016 in Paris, where they were seen getting cosy while waiting to view the Mona Lisa at The Louvre. This was ahead of the Cannes Film Festival where Linden was showing his film Money Monster starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney.
The couple has since had two children together, a daughter and a son, with their first son arriving in April 2018. McAdams was pregnant again in 2020 and revealed during the press surrounding Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that she had given birth to a baby girl. The pair have done everything to retain their children’s anonymity and have not released their names to the press.
As it stands, and given the fact that they have children together, it would seem that the couple is going strong. It would seem that this romantic actress has found her own real-life love story in Linden.