Who Is Lizzy Caplan's Husband? All About Actor Tom Riley

When they first started dating, Tom Riley almost sacrificed an eye while trying to impress Lizzy Caplan. Fortunately, his injury wasn’t for nothing — they’re now married and share a son.

The actors met in London in 2015 while Caplan was there to film Allied. It was early on in their relationship when Riley arrived at his then-girlfriend’s Los Angeles home, gargled Listerine and spat it out onto the roadside only to be met with a cactus needle in his eye, per This Morning.

Ultimately, that incident only brought the couple closer together. They wed in 2017 on the Amalfi coast in Italy with several celebrity guests in attendance. Four years later, they welcomed their son, Alfie.

The Mean Girls actress noted to Grazia USA in 2022 she “can’t imagine” raising him with anyone else. “I do feel very, very lucky,” she said.

Both Caplan and Riley value their privacy and are not active on social media. “The idea of being a ‘power couple’ or in a relationship that is a ‘brand’ is just so unappealing to me,” he explained to The Telegraph.

However, they do share touching and hilarious anecdotes about their marriage and family life in interviews.

So, who is Lizzy Caplan's husband? Here's everything to know about Tom Riley and his relationship with the Fatal Attraction star.

He’s from Kent, England

Riley grew up in a town in Kent, England, called Maidstone, per his website. He was already acting by the age of 4 and enjoyed writing and directing plays throughout his time in school.

For college, the actor attended Birmingham University, where he studied English literature and drama, founded a theater company called Article 19 and also had his own radio show.

Riley then graduated in 2002 and began a three-year acting course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

They met while Lizzy was filming in London

Caplan and Riley met in London while she was there to film the war drama Allied in 2015. They went public with their relationship at the Prague Opera Ball in February 2016, and got engaged three months later.

He’s an actor and producer

Riley is an actor, director and producer. He’s best known for playing Leonardo da Vinci in the Starz series Da Vinci’s Demons, as well as Charlie in BBC2's Ill Behaviour, DI Will Wagstaffe in ITV's Dark Heart and Claude Sabine in Amazon UK's The Collection. He also appeared in the Netflix series, The Woman In The House… and in HBO’s The Nevers.

In addition to his television roles, Riley has starred in several indie films, performed onstage and directed and produced a variety of television and film projects.

According to his website, he pursues work that he “can take pride in; that he would want to show to his friends; that he would seek out if he were not in it and that his heroes would enjoy.”

Tom almost lost an eye on a date early in their relationship

When Riley attempted to put his best foot forward during one of his early dates with Caplan, he wound up seriously injuring himself. He told the story during a 2018 interview on This Morning.

“I pulled up outside her house in L.A., and I wanted to have very clean breath,” Riley remembered. He was prepared with Listerine in his glove box, so he gargled and spat on the roadside.

What he didn’t notice was the cactus in his spitting path. “As I spat, a needle went straight through my eyeball,” the actor said on the show.

Although he tried to play it cool with Caplan at the time, she noticed how bad his eye looked, and his pupil began to leak. Doctors told Riley that he was just 2.5 millimeters from going blind.

“There is nothing that solidifies the beginning of a new relationship more than having to put an eye patch on your boyfriend’s face every night before he falls asleep,” he joked.

They got married in Italy

Over Labor Day weekend in 2017, the couple exchanged vows in Ravello, an Italian town on the Amalfi Coast.

According to the local newspaper, Il Vescovado, fellow actors Octavia Spencer, Lily Collins, Dianna Agron, James Marsden, Chris Hemsworth and Dave Franco were all in attendance. Celebrity stylist Ilaria Urbinati was also there to celebrate.

After the ceremony, Riley posted a black-and-white photo from the special day on his now-deleted Instagram. “This one seems fertile,” he quipped in the caption. “She shall make a satisfactory first wife.”

Caplan had debuted her engagement ring in June 2016 at the Now You See Me 2 premiere. In July 2016, she gave fans a better look while posing at the Ghostbusters premiere. She wore her ring with a white Erdem dress and a small black handbag at the event.

They share a son

Caplan and Riley welcomed their son Alfie in 2021. The actress opened up about enjoying motherhood during an interview with Grazia USA the following year.

“There are moments where you're just watching this little person do a thing and you're just beaming at him and you don't even realize you're beaming until maybe you see a picture of yourself watching him do this thing and you realize, ‘Oh my, I'm smiling so much right now,’ ” Caplan explained to the magazine.

She also described parenting Alfie as “unrivaled pure joy.” According to Caplan, her husband is the “father of the century," and she noted that they both felt prepared to take this step.

“We got a lot of life in before we had a kid, so we were both very ready to do this,” she said, adding, “Motherhood's good stuff. Highly recommend. 10 out of 10 would recommend.”

Riley revealed that being a father “has its ups and downs” during a January 2022 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. He recalled the time he and Caplan took Alfie on his first international flight, and the baby had a messy accident when they took off. Apparently, Caplan ended up on “on all fours” trying to clean him up in the plane bathroom.

Caplan joked he gets into the "most embarrassing" situations

In October 2019, Caplan appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and poked fun at her husband. “I like that he tends to get into the most embarrassing, humiliating situations on earth,” she told Jimmy Kimmel, before recalling a specific instance.

One time, when they were seeing a play at a theater in England, Riley went to the bathroom and returned “white as a ghost, covered in sweat,” according to Caplan.

He proceeded to explain to her that he tried to spit gum into a urinal, but it landed on another man’s private area in the process. “I wanted him to tell the story even slower, so I could just drink it in,” she said.

They prioritize each other

Even with their busy careers, the actors always put each other and Alfie first. Caplan shared with PEOPLE in May 2023 that her “priorities are set.” She explained, “I have a baby, [am] married. That part of my life is the most important part of my life, where in the past, work was the most important part.”

The duo often support each other’s work at industry events; Caplan attended Riley’s Starfish premiere in 2016, and he joined her at the premieres for Allied and her Hulu series, Castle Rock. They also celebrated her show, Fleishman Is in Trouble, at Carnegie Hall together in November 2022.

Riley and Caplan still make time for romance, too. During an April 2023 appearance on Watch What Happens Live, the Cloverfield star told host Andy Cohen about Riley’s sweet gesture for her 40th birthday. The actor got 150 people from her past to write kind messages, and then he made a book out of it. “He tracked down my high school boyfriend,” Caplan emphasized.