Michael Sheen Reveals Romance with Co-Star Rachel McAdams

"We've been a couple for a while now."

ByABC News
May 18, 2011, 9:53 AM

May 18, 2011— -- Tuesday night at the New York premiere of Woody Allen's new movie, Midnight in Paris, Michael Sheen, one of the film's stars, publicly acknowledged for the first time his real life romance with co-star Rachel McAdams. Last week, at the Cannes film festival, McAdams and Sheen were seen arm and arm on the red carpet. Tuesday night, miles from the media frenzy in the French Riviera in an intimate basement at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, when asked about McAdams, Sheen told ABCNews.com, "We've been a couple for a while now."

In Midnight in Paris, a Hollywood screenwriter, Gil, (played by Owen Wilson) travels to Paris with his fiancee Inez (played by Rachel McAdams) and her parents. Gil longs to be a serious novelist and is inspired by the city of lights so much that he wanders off alone at midnight and somehow re-emerges in the 1920s, in the company of idols like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Alone while Gil is engrossed in another era, Inez flirts with Paul (played by Michael Sheen), a college crush and an American intellectual lecturing at the Sorbonne.

In reality Sheen and McAdams' budding romance imitates art. Inspired by the romantic sights while filming on location in France, Sheen admitted that, "I'm sure [Paris sparked our romance]. That's where we met...[and] got to know each other but … [we didn't start dating until] much later on…in her home city of Toronto."

Fashionably late, McAdams arrived after Sheen at their New York premiere, and wore a full length white silk Louis Vuitton gown that could have been her wedding dress. When it came to her relationship with Sheen, McAdams was coy. Reflecting on her experience shooting the film she gushed, "[The cast] got to spend good quality time in Paris…[and] we all had a great time together… [The experience] is something I will always really cherish."

It is not the first time in recent years that two actors have fallen in love after filming a Woody Allen movie. Oscar winners Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem starred in Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona in 2008, were married last July, and recently gave birth to their first son, Leo.

Maybe it was Allen's direction that encouraged Bardem and Cruz's real life relationship. He told ABCNews.com "When I did Vicki Christina Barcelona…Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem improvised all over the place…in Spanish. I don't speak a word of Spanish and to this day I have no idea what they said in those scenes. You could tell by their body language… I just have faith in them. But I don't really know what they were saying and you know it doesn't matter to me."