Key Takeaways
- Cooper Hoffman, 23-year-old son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, is dating Nico Parker, the 21-year-old daughter of Thandiwe Newton and filmmaker Ol Parker, after meeting on the set of Maude Apatow’s directorial debut Poetic License in 2024.
- Their relationship started when Nico visited Cooper in New York to meet his mother, costume designer and producer Mimi O’Donnell, where he asked her to be his girlfriend, a moment he described as “very sweet.”
- Both are building their own careers—Cooper from Licorice Pizza to I Want Your Sex, Nico from Dumbo to a BAFTA-nominated turn in The Last of Us—while Cooper stresses he won’t lean on family or Paul Thomas Anderson for easy roles, even working as a PA on Spielberg’s The Fabelmans to see “the other side” of the industry.
Hollywood has a new next-generation power couple. Cooper Hoffman, the 23-year-old son of late Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, is dating 21-year-old actor Nico Parker, whose parents are Westworld star Thandiwe Newton and filmmaker Ol Parker.
According to Vogue, the two met in late 2024 while shooting Poetic License, Maude Apatow’s feature directorial debut. Cooper revealed that their off-screen relationship began a few weeks after production wrapped, when Nico visited him in New York. “She came to New York to meet my mom, and I asked her to be my girlfriend,” he said. “It was very sweet.”
Famous parents may have put both actors on Hollywood’s radar, but their work is keeping them there. Cooper made a head-turning screen debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 film Licorice Pizza, then followed it with roles in The Long Walk and Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, opposite Olivia Wilde.
Nico broke into movies with Tim Burton’s live-action Dumbo before appearing in Reminiscence and Suncoast. She later earned a 2024 BAFTA Television Award nomination for her performance as Sarah Miller in HBO’s The Last of Us.
Their family resumés are even more loaded. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the best actor Oscar for Capote and built a celebrated career through films including The Master, Doubt, Boogie Nights and The Hunger Games franchise. He died in 2014, when Cooper was 10.
Cooper’s mother, Mimi O’Donnell, is a costume designer, producer and former artistic director of New York’s Labyrinth Theater Company. Cooper grew up in New York City with his two younger sisters, surrounded by both film and theater.
Nico’s side of the family brings plenty of firepower, too. Thandiwe Newton won an Emmy for Westworld and has appeared in films including Crash and The Pursuit of Happyness. Nico’s father, Ol Parker, directed Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and Ticket to Paradise.
Her older sister, Ripley Parker, is a screenwriter, while her younger brother is named Booker. Newton and Parker married in 1998 before separating in 2022.
Cooper has also made it clear that he is not interested in treating his Hollywood connections like an unlimited-access pass. After Licorice Pizza, Anderson sent him to work as a production assistant on Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.
“He told me, ‘You’ve seen how this side lives, now you have to see the other side,’” Cooper recalled. As for asking Anderson to hand him another role, Cooper joked, “Can you imagine if I texted him, like, ‘Part for Coop?’ You don’t do that to Paul.”
