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The Thursday Murder Club boasts a star-studded cast of Hollywood legends.
Based on Richard Osman’s bestselling book, the film follows a group of four mystery-loving senior sleuths: Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), Ibrahim (Sir Ben Kingsley) and Joyce (Celia Imrie). The friends, who all live in the same peaceful English retirement community, gather once a week to solve cold cases for fun. However, their casual hobby takes a dramatic turn when a property developer is found dead and the four find themselves in the middle of a real murder mystery.
Speaking to PEOPLE in April 2025, Mirren shared that she fell in love with her character when she first read Osman’s book.
“I sort of went, ‘Oh, if they ever make a movie of it, I’d love to play that role,’ ” she said. “I very, very rarely feel that, but I have to confess, I did feel that this time.”
Although primarily a murder mystery, love is at the heart of the story. While romance isn’t a central plot point, familial relationships are explored through Ron and his son, Jason (Tom Ellis), plus Joyce and her daughter, Joanna (who is played by Osman’s real-life wife, Ingrid Oliver).
Although their spouses aren’t in The Thursday Murder Club, most of the other cast members are also happily married. Brosnan and Mirren have both been wed to their spouses, Keely Shaye Smith and Taylor Hackford, respectively, for more than 20 years. Kingsley and his wife, Daniela Lavender, tied the knot in 2007.
Here’s everything to know about the real-life loves of The Thursday Murder Club cast.
Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford
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Mirren, who stars as Elizabeth Best, an ex-spy and the founder of the Thursday Murder Club, has been married to Hackford for 27 years.
Mirren met the Oscar-winning director when she auditioned for his 1985 film, White Nights. She ultimately landed the role and the pair began dating the following year.
“When we first met, there was instant passion,” Hackford told PEOPLE in February 2024 at the 37th Annual American Cinematheque Awards. “She’s a very sexy girl and she still is. But the reality is, over a period of time, you start to — you mature.”
After being together for over a decade, the couple got married in Scotland on Dec. 31, 1997.
“We got married in the end because we realized that we were going to be together forever,” Mirren told AARP in November 2016, adding that they were primarily motivated “for legal reasons more than anything else.”
“I always said I have nothing against marriage; it just wasn’t to my taste, like turnips,” she said. “It took me a very long time to come round to acquiring the taste. I just had to meet the right turnip.”
Prior to his marriage, Hackford welcomed two sons from previous relationships: Alexander and Rio. According to the director, Mirren is a wonderful stepmother.
“She’s just a fantastic person to live with, to have a family with,” he told PEOPLE. “And she’s one of the most relaxed and completely real people outside of when she’s working. And that’s a delight.”
Pierce Brosnan and Keely Shaye Smith
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Brosnan portrays Ron Ritchie, a former union activist and widower, but in real life, the actor has been married to his wife, Smith, for nearly 25 years.
The couple first met in Mexico in 1994 while she was working as a TV correspondent. Their meeting came a few years after the death of Brosnan’s first wife, Cassandra Harris, with whom he shared three children: Charlotte, Christopher and Sean.
“He was captivating,” Smith told PEOPLE in 2001 of the James Bond star. “Tall, dark and handsome — everything that everybody would immediately be attracted to. He had this mischievous sparkle in his eyes. I thought, ‘Wow! Wow!’ ”
Brosnan and Smith welcomed two sons together: Dylan in 1997 and Paris in 2001.
Six months after Paris was born, the couple exchanged wedding vows in Ireland in August 2001.
“Keely and I love each other and are blessed to have each other as companions in this life,” Brosnan told Fox News in June 2025. “We’ve created a good life for ourselves of hard work and perseverance of life.”
Celia Imrie
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Imrie portrays Joyce Meadowcroft, a former nurse and recent widow. In real life, the actress is happily single and has never been married.
In fact, the actress told The Telegraph in June 2013 that she has no desire to ever marry. “I have a horror of boring someone or, worse still, of someone boring me,” she said.
However, Imrie did want to be a mother, so in the ’90s, she approached her friend, late actor Benjamin Whitrow, with a “no strings attached” proposition, she told The Times in February 2018.
Whitrow agreed to welcome a child with her, and their son, Angus, was born in 1994.
“Angus was devoted to his father and, though I’ve never really said it properly, Ben and I did have a romance,” she told The Times. “I wanted to have his baby before it was too late.”
Ben Kingsley and Daniela Lavender
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Kingsley rounds out the cast as Ibrahim Arif, a former psychiatrist and the fourth member of the Thursday Murder Club.
The actor first met his future wife Lavender, a Brazilian actress, at a 2006 dinner party in Los Angeles where they bonded over their love of films.
“I was just delighted that he was as interesting a man as he was an actor,” Lavender told The Daily Mail in April 2011. “I think I fell in love with him the first time we spoke.”
In September 2007, the couple wed at his country home in England after nearly two years of dating.
“I’m gloriously happy,” the actor told Page Six the following month. “It’s all very exciting. Everyone deserves this kind of happiness. Life is incomplete until you find the right one to share it with.”
A father of four, Kingsley shares two sons, Thomas and Jasmin, with his first wife, Angela Morant, and two sons, Edmund and Ferdinand, with his second wife, Alison Sutcliffe.
Tom Ellis and Meaghan Oppenheimer
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In The Thursday Murder Club, Ellis portrays Jason Ritchie, Ron’s son and a former world champion boxer who is focused on his career. In real life, though, Ellis is a father of four and happily married to his wife, screenwriter Meaghan Oppenheimer.
The couple first met in 2015. They got married four years later in June 2019.
In November 2023, the pair welcomed their first child together, daughter Dolly Ellis-Oppenheimer, via a surrogate. Ellis also shares son Flo and daughters Marnie and Nora from previous relationships.
Ellis also stars in Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, which his wife is the showrunner for.
“We really weirdly work very, very well together,” Oppenheimer told PEOPLE in October 2024. “I think she’s really, really talented at what she does, and she’s really, really good at talking to actors.”
Ingrid Oliver and Richard Osman
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Oliver portrays Joyce’s daughter, Joanna Meadowcroft, in The Thursday Murder Club. In real life, the actress is married to Osman, the author of the bestselling book that the movie is adapted from.
The couple first met in 2020 on the set of Osman’s BBC game show, House of Games.
“I was instantly smitten,” he told The Times in July 2025. “She was beautiful, funny and clever. I got her phone number that night and we’ve been in each other’s pockets ever since.”
Oliver and Osman got married in December 2022. During the ceremony, he chose to walk in first with his two children, Ruby and Sonny. “It’s been joyous to see how our families have blended,” he said.
He went on to praise his wife’s work on The Thursday Murder Club. “Ingrid has totally nailed the character of Joanna in the film of the book. I’m in awe of her acting ability.”
For her part, Oliver called it “surreal” to work on a film inspired by her husband’s work. “He had no idea I’d been cast — there was certainly no phone call to get me the part,” she said, adding, “It’s been such fun.”
