Olivia Colman feels non-binary and described herself | UK News

Olivia Colman admitted she has always “felt sort of non-binary” and does not really feel “massively feminine” in her gender. The actress, 52, has been married to Ed Sinclair for 25 years, but confessed she has never felt comfy in inflexible gender roles. The Crown star made the feedback while selling her new movie Jimpa, which follows Hannah (Colman) and her non-binary teenager, Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) as they go to her homosexual grandfather (John Lithgow) in Amsterdam.

“Throughout my whole life, I’ve had arguments with people where I’ve always sort of felt nonbinary,” she told Them. “I’ve never felt massive feminine in my being female. I’ve always described myself to my husband as a gay man. And he goes, ‘Yeah I get that.’ And so I do feel at home and at ease. I don’t really spend a whole lot of time with people who are very staunchly heteroinappropriate… The men I know and love are very in touch with all sides of themselves.”

The Broadchurch star added: “I think with my husband and I, we take turns to be the ‘strong one’, or the one who needs a little bit of gentleness. I believe everyone has all of it in them. I’ve always felt like that.

“I’m not alone in saying, ‘I do not really feel prefer it’s binary.’ And I beloved that. I got here away from making this movie with, yeah, I knew I wasn’t alone.”

The term non-binary describes a person’s gender identity that falls outside the traditional male and female binary, such as people who identify as gender queer or gender fluid.

Olivia and Ed met in the ’90s and fell in love while rehearsing for a Cambridge Footlights production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Table Manners.

The couple tied the knot in 2001 and went on to welcome three children, Finn, 20, Hall, 18, and a 10-year-old daughter who has never been publicly named.

After starting out his career as an actor, Ed became a screenwriter and film producer. The couple have collaborated on a number of projects, including the 2021 Sky drama series Landscapers.

They also teamed up on the films Wicked Little Letters (2023) and The Roses (2025) which they produced together and starred Colman in the lead role.

Recalling the first time she laid eyes on Ed, Olivia told the publication: “I’d gone to two of the rehearsals and there was no one notably fanciable there. Then I walked in and I noticed his left-hand profile.

“At the time he was smoking a ciggie, his feet were crossed, and he’s got this lovely bump in his nose and I saw his side profile and just went, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to marry him.’ I had proper thunderbolts: that’s him, that’s him! Poor thing, he didn’t know.”

Speaking about their relationship in 2013, Olivia gushed that the couple had been “very lucky” to have met when they did.

She told the Daily Mail: “My husband and I were very lucky. We met when we had nothing and we loved each other then. So we were all right. We were 20 and he was also an actor. If you meet at that age then you’re fine.”

The Heartstopper star also shared the key to their longlasting marriage, telling the Good Hang podcast: “We’re not big fighters, which apparently isn’t very healthy. We have learned over the years – but really late on actually – to sometimes [think], if that was annoying, just wait.”

She added: “And it doesn’t work for everyone, I know that, but I think it’s much better to wait until the calmer moments to go, ‘Can we talk about that moment? I did find that a little weird and is that OK that I’m saying this and yes I was a bit cross that day’…”