Frances McDormand Met Her Husband Joel Coen During the Audition for Her First Movie
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Throughout Frances McDormand’s incredible three-decade career, her husband Joel Coen has been by her side. In fact, Joel, a director himself, gave Frances her first gig on the big screen. Now, the actress is nominated for Best Actress at the 93rd Academy Awards for the film Nomadland. This marks her sixth Oscar nomination, two of which she won with Joel cheering her on.
On Sunday night, viewers may just catch a glimpse of Joel again. During their 36 years of marriage, Frances and Joel have worked together, created a family and continue going strong.
They met during an audition.
The couple met when Frances auditioned for Blood Simple, the directorial debut of the Coen Brothers. She auditioned for the role of Abby, a bar owner's wife who finds herself embroiled in a murder-for-hire plot gone wrong. But Frances played a little hard-to-get during the audition process. When the directors asked her to come to a callback audition, she said no because she had promised to watch her boyfriend's two-line debut in a soap opera.
Years later, Frances teased Joel in an interview at the Rome Film Festival, saying, "That's why you hired me, because I said no." Joel says that although it was her talent that won her the role, they did appreciate her boldness. "We really liked that. It was so guileless — just what we wanted for Abby," he later told The New York Times.
Literature brought them together.
Although they're obvious film enthusiasts, the two are also passionate about literature. While filming Blood Simple in Austin, Texas, Frances brought only one book with her. She asked Joel if he had any recommendations, and he brought her an entire box of books by James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler.
"I said, 'Which one should I start with?' And he said, 'The Postman Always Rings Twice,'" she told The Daily Beast. "A couple of nights later, I said, 'Would you like to come over and discuss the book?' That did it. He seduced me with literature. And then we discussed books and drank hot chocolate for several evenings."
Frances got married to Joel with a unique wedding ring.
The couple got married in 1984, and Frances's ring wasn't what you'd expect. It had actually belonged to Joel's ex-wife, whom he'd divorced in the late '70s. Many women would take issue with that, but Frances didn't mind. According to The New York Times Magazine, she had simply seen it as a matter of practicality, saying that the ring shouldn't go to waste.
They adopted a son from Paraguay.
In 1995, Frances and Joel adopted a son from Paraguay named Pedro McDormand Coen. He's now an adult working as a personal trainer, but Frances recalled his early childhood as she prepared to play a grieving mother in Three Billboards.
"As a mother, you live on the edge of disaster," she told Belfast Telegraph. "You just do. I didn't give birth to my son, I met him at six months old, but from the minute I held him and smelled him, I knew it was my job to keep him alive."
They enjoy working together on projects.
Joel has said that when he begins working on a new project, he's often had his wife in mind as he writes female roles. She hasn't starred in every single Coen Brothers film, but she's done her fair share, with roles in Raising Arizona, Mississippi Burning, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading and Hail, Caesar!.
Frances says their chemistry and bond makes their working relationship special.
"It was a revelation that I could have a lover who I could also work with and I wasn't intimidated by the person," Frances told NYT Magazine. "It was: Wow! Really! Oh, my God! I can actually love and live — not subvert anything, not apologize for anything, not hide anything."
New stories keep their marriage strong.
In a 2015 interview at the Rome Film Festival, the duo revealed the key to their strong marriage.
"I think it's having different stories to tell each other," Frances said. "Although we have often collaborated on films, we have both had really autonomous careers and so we have always had new things to tell each other."
They encourage each other to take on adventures.
Although it won her Best Leading Actress at the 90th Academy Awards (and was written specifically with her in mind, according to director Martin McDonagh), Frances almost turned down the lead role for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
"When I first read it, I loved it, I thought Mildred was amazing. I was very flattered, but then I said, 'No, I'm sorry, I'm too old,'" she said on a film panel in September. In the 2017 movie, she plays a grieving mother whose teenage daughter has been murdered.
"Because at the time he gave it to me I was 58 … I was concerned that women from this socioeconomic strata did not wait until 38 to have their first child," she explained to the panel.
Thankfully, Joel encouraged her to take the role. "Finally my husband said, 'Just shut up and do it,'" Frances laughs.
Frances and Joel prove that with a little bit of chemistry and a gentle nudge every once in a while, a power couple can take on the world together.
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