AMANDA SEYFRIED AND DOMINIC COOPER: FROM A MAMMA MIA ROMANCE TO A SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP

Nearly two decades after meeting on the set of Mamma Mia!, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper have managed to maintain a special relationship, even though their romantic story ended long ago. The two once played Sophie and Sky, a young couple preparing to get married in the hit musical film inspired by the songs of ABBA. But what happened behind the scenes also turned their real-life romance into one of the relationships that particularly captured fans’ attention. Seyfried and Cooper dated for around three years after the first film was made before breaking up in 2011. Years later, they were not only able to see each other comfortably again, but also reunited on screen in the 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

More recently, their reunion at the Hamptons International Film Festival once again put their relationship in the spotlight. Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper happened to appear at the event to promote their latest film projects, marking the first time they had seen each other in quite some time. Seyfried was promoting The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, while Cooper appeared with The Lightkeeper. Both films reflect a different stage in their careers, as they have moved far beyond the image of the young couple they portrayed in Mamma Mia! and taken on more complex roles. Their encounter did not have the feel of former lovers rekindling a romance, but rather of two people who once shared an important part of their youth looking back on those years after a long time apart.

In an interview with People, Seyfried acknowledged that her life and Cooper’s are now very different. “Our lives are very different. We live in very different places and I just have nothing but good feelings about him,” the actress said. For Seyfried, their relationship is no longer defined by the romance they once shared. Instead, it has evolved into a gentler kind of bond, rooted in the years they experienced together when they were younger. “When you’re with somebody for a long time when you’re younger, it just kind of evolves into this familial, nice, soft kind of bond,” she explained. Seyfried added: “It’s nice to see him. Also, I’m just grateful for him.”

The way Seyfried speaks about Cooper shows how the passage of time has completely changed the way she looks back on their former relationship. She does not avoid the past, but neither does she seem interested in turning it into an unfinished love story. “He’s hilarious,” Seyfried said of her former co-star. “It’s funny, relationships, friendships, they always evolve. It’s just so crazy that as we get older, you just want to be kind if you can. Especially if you had a friendship like that, I think it’s amazing, and I feel really lucky.” For the actress, what matters is not whether the two will ever get back together, but whether they can preserve the good things that remained after a relationship came to an end.

Seyfried and Cooper’s story began with Mamma Mia! in 2008. The film cast Amanda Seyfried as Sophie Sheridan, a young woman about to get married who wants to discover the identity of her biological father. In the story, Sophie invites three men who once had relationships with her mother, Donna, played by Meryl Streep, to a Greek island just before her wedding. Dominic Cooper played Sky, Sophie’s fiancé. On screen, they were an energetic young couple; off screen, their relationship also developed while they were making the film. The success of Mamma Mia! went far beyond expectations, generating approximately $611 million worldwide, turning the movie into a pop-culture phenomenon and helping both actors gain widespread recognition.

What makes their story particularly notable is that Seyfried and Cooper still had to work together after their breakup. In 2018, they returned as Sophie and Sky in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Having once dated in real life and then continuing to play a couple on screen was not necessarily an easy situation, particularly because Seyfried was married to Thomas Sadoski at the time. She previously said that her husband was not entirely comfortable with her reuniting with her former boyfriend on screen. Seyfried once explained: “I’d guess he assumed Dominic is in love with me the way he’s in love with me. And it’s just not the case, it’s sweet.” She also admitted: “I’d rather he be jealous than completely fine with it.” From that experience, Seyfried emphasized one important principle when working with an ex: “The number one, most important thing is setting boundaries.”

Years later, Seyfried has entered an entirely different chapter of her life. She was married to Thomas Sadoski and has two children, Nina and Thomas. However, in September 2026, the couple confirmed that they had separated after nine years of marriage. Reports indicated that the split was handled relatively privately and that the two continued to maintain respect for one another while co-parenting their children. Seyfried’s personal life therefore once again attracted public attention, although the actress has long preferred to keep much of her family life away from the spotlight. She currently lives in New York with her children and maintains a farm in the surrounding area, a choice that reflects her desire to find a balance between her career and private life.

Meanwhile, Dominic Cooper continues to be in a long-term relationship with actress Gemma Chan. The two are believed to have begun dating in 2018 and have kept their romantic life relatively private. Chan has previously said that she feels fortunate to have a relationship in which the two of them can talk to each other about everything. Cooper and Chan have also been seen together on private occasions, but neither has generally made their relationship a central part of their public image. So when Seyfried says that her life and Cooper’s are now very different, she is referring not only to geographical distance but also to the separate paths they have chosen since Mamma Mia! nearly two decades ago.

Amanda Seyfried’s career has also changed significantly since she became Sophie. Before Mamma Mia!, she first gained attention through Mean Girls, the 2004 film that helped introduce her to a wider audience with a small but memorable role. She went on to appear in projects across a range of genres, including Jennifer’s Body, Letters to Juliet, and Les Misérables. Rather than remaining confined to the image of a young actress known primarily for romantic films, Seyfried gradually sought out characters with greater psychological depth. On television, she also received widespread praise for playing Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, a performance that earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series.

One of Seyfried’s more recent career turning points came with The Housemaid, the 2025 film starring Sydney Sweeney and Brandon Sklenar. The movie became a significant commercial success, grossing around $400 million worldwide and paving the way for a sequel. Seyfried admitted that although she had already appeared in numerous successful films, she only truly began to feel that she could be considered a “movie star” after the success of The Housemaid. That perspective says something about the way Seyfried views her own career: she has worked in the entertainment industry for many years, but has not always found it easy to see herself as a traditional movie star.

Seyfried is now continuing to pursue more mature and complex roles. In The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, she plays a creative-writing teacher at a prison in Oklahoma who develops feelings for an incarcerated man. The film was written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson and also stars Scoot McNairy. Seyfried said she feels that she is increasingly being approached for more layered characters at this stage of her career. “I feel like right now people are seeking me out to play these roles, which is just a real privilege,” she said. For an actress who became widely known through commercial films and a youthful, sweet image, the shift represents a notable evolution.

For Dominic Cooper, his career has also moved well beyond Sky in Mamma Mia!. The actor has appeared in An Education, My Week with Marilyn, and numerous other film and television projects, while also taking on a notable role as Jesse Custer in the series Preacher. As Seyfried has gradually gravitated toward psychologically driven characters, Cooper has likewise continued to explore stories centered on loss and inner conflict. His new film The Lightkeeper is one example. He plays Seamus, an Irish lighthouse keeper forced to live with the grief of losing his wife and son. The role carried particular significance for Cooper because he made the film while dealing with a personal loss of his own.

Cooper revealed that his mother died not long before he began filming The Lightkeeper. His family had also experienced the loss of a child before he was born, giving the film’s themes of grief a particularly personal resonance. “I felt quite close to it because I grew up in a family who suffered the grief of a loss of a child,” he said. “Many, many years ago - in fact, it was just before I was born, so I was born into the sadness, or the weight, of it. I just always was aware that someone wonderful and beautiful was missing, and I had just lost my mother when I was filming this film, which really informed [the experience]. It was very healing and a very important time.”

Looking at their relationship today, the fact that Seyfried and Cooper can still speak warmly about each other after a three-year romance has become a particularly touching part of their story. Hollywood often associates relationships between actors with dramatic breakups, conflicts on set, or awkwardness when former couples have to continue playing romantic partners. Seyfried and Cooper have taken a different path. They broke up, pursued their separate careers, later returned to the screen as a couple, and eventually reached a point where they could speak about each other with gratitude rather than bitterness. Seyfried herself once acknowledged that the most important thing was establishing boundaries, a principle that appears to have helped the two maintain a professional relationship.

Their relationship also highlights the lasting cultural impact of Mamma Mia!. Cooper said that it took him years to realize just how deeply the film had resonated with audiences. Fans have told him that they watch the movie repeatedly with their children, while others have said that the songs and story of Mamma Mia! brought them comfort during difficult periods, including the final days of loved ones’ lives. “That, for me, is just extraordinary to be part of that,” Cooper said. For him, the value of the film appears to have gone far beyond its box-office performance or the fame it brought its cast.

That is why the question of Mamma Mia! 3 has never completely disappeared. Cooper has openly said that he is “desperate to make number three,” while Seyfried has also expressed her support for another installment. However, there is still no official release date for the project. Producer Judy Craymer has previously suggested that a sequel remains a possibility and that ideas for the story already exist, although the project depends on a number of factors, including winning the participation of ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Seyfried currently has no specific details to confirm about the production, but she has spoken about her desire to “manifest a Mamma Mia! 3,” before concluding with two words: “tick tock.”

Cooper has even imagined a storyline for the third film, although he later realized that he had misremembered what happened in the 2018 sequel. He joked that he had once thought Sophie and Sky had broken up before getting back together, and imagined the pair meeting again at a wedding on a Greek island. “By the end of this weekend, maybe Amanda and I will come up with the third,” he said. The actor then joked that they should make the movie quickly because “we’re all getting old”. While the remark was lighthearted, it also reflects a reality: nearly two decades have passed since the first film, and the cast of Mamma Mia! are now at very different stages of their lives.

If Mamma Mia! 3 does eventually happen, Seyfried and Cooper’s return would inevitably carry a different meaning from their reunion in 2008. Back then, they were young actors dating in real life while portraying a couple preparing to marry on screen. Today, they are established actors with families, separate relationships, and very different career paths. Seyfried is entering a new chapter following her marriage to Sadoski, while focusing on her two children and increasingly complex roles. Cooper remains in his long-term relationship with Gemma Chan and continues to pursue more mature projects, including The Lightkeeper.

In the end, the most interesting part of Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper’s story may not be whether they will once again play lovers, but how a relationship that was once very real can change shape over time. From Sophie and Sky on a Greek island to two actors unexpectedly meeting again at a film festival many years later, the distance between them is no longer measured by the romance that ended, but by the memories they share. “It’s funny, relationships, friendships, they always evolve,” Seyfried said. In their case, that evolution appears to have carried a youthful romance toward a quieter place: no longer a romantic relationship, but still close enough for them to look back and say that they were fortunate to have once been part of each other’s lives.