More than two years after splitting from her husband — and being romantically linked to her “Fargo” co-star Ewan McGregor — Mary Elizabeth Winstead is opening up about her divorce.
In a new interview with Glamour UK that she did with her co-stars to promote the new movie “Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn),” Mary — who plays Huntress in the flick — revealed what it was like to start over after ending her marriage to writer-director Riley Stearns. They wed in 2010 and split in May 2017 when she was 32.
“I got divorced a couple of years ago, which was a scary, crazy thing for me because I had been with the same person since I was 18 years old, and that was what I knew,” Mary told Glamour UK.
“All the way through my 20s I was trying very hard to keep myself the same, because another thing I heard a lot growing up was people saying, ‘You’re so great, never change.’ You can take that to heart, in the wrong way, and try to keep yourself from growing too much because you don’t know what’s on the other side,” she explained.
“So I was really starting new as an adult for the first time in my life [after my divorce],” she added. “For me that was a big turning point, being OK with changing, accepting that change is a good thing and that it’s OK not to know where that change is going to take you.”
One place it took her? Into a romance with Ewan, which sparked speculation that he’d cheated on his wife of 22 years. Mary did not address Ewan or their relationship in the Glamour UK story, but the backstory is well-documented: After photos of Ewan and Mary kissing at a London cafe were published in October 2017, People magazine reported that the actor had quietly separated from Eve Mavrakis, the mother of his four children, in May 2017 — the same month Mary and Riley confirmed their own split.
According to a November 2017 report in The Sun, the actor told to Eve, a Greek-French production designer, in May that he was in love with his co-star “but insisted nothing had happened,” the newspaper reported.
Mary told Glamour UK that suddenly being independent after splitting with longtime love Riley “absolutely” scared her. “That’s been a big thing for me as well because growing up I had a mom who was always there taking care of everything. So, getting to that point where I don’t have a crutch to rely on to take care of things has been really empowering and important,” she explained.
When Mary and Riley broke up, both took to Instagram to share the news. “Sitting here with my best friend who I love with all my heart. We have spent our lives together and it has been full of joy and warmth every day. We’ve decided to move on from our marriage, but we will stay best friends and collaborators for all our days. We are still ride or die, just in a different way now. I love you always, Riley,” Mary captioned a photo of herself kissing Riley on the cheek, as reported by People magazine at the time.
Riley, then 30, also shared the image, captioning his post, “We just took this photo together. I met Mary 15 years ago and we’ve been the most important people in each other’s lives ever since. Those lives have been full of every emotion imaginable and we’ve embraced it all. Life is unpredictable though. While we will still be in each other’s lives we will no longer be living those lives together. We still love each other very much but we’re different people with different paths and different futures. I can’t wait to see where we both end up. I’ll always love you, Mary.”