Who Is Will Ferrell’s Wife, Viveca Paulin? All About Their Decades-Long Marriage

Will Ferrell and Viveca Paulin met in an acting class in the early ‘90s

NEED TO KNOW

• Will Ferrell and Viveca Paulin wed in 2000
• They share three sons: Magnus, Mattias and Axel
• Paulin is a former actress turned art collector

Will Ferrell has found someone to laugh at his jokes forever: his wife, Viveca Paulin.

The pair first met in an acting class in 1991, but their romance was short-lived. While appearing on the MeSsy podcast in July 2024, Ferrell recalled that it was “kind of too much too fast at too young.”

“Then we were just friends for five years, and then we circled back to each other,” he added.

Ferrell and Paulin married in 2000 and went on to welcome three sons: Magnus, Mattias and Axel. Now, after nearly three decades together, their relationship is still going strong — thanks, in part, to their shared sense of humor.

In November 2024, Ferrell told PEOPLE that “making each other laugh“ was the secret to his lasting bond with Paulin — a fitting philosophy for the actor, who has built a career on making audiences laugh in films like Elf, Anchorman and, most recently, Netflix’s The Hawk, which premiered on July 16.

So, who is Will Ferrell’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Viveca Paulin and her relationship with the actor.

She was born in Sweden but grew up in Boston

Paulin was born in Sweden but was raised in Boston.

Ferrell explained during an interview for the Golden Globes that Paulin first brought him to her home country in 1998, when she and her cousin introduced him to Eurovision.

“We were visiting her family in Sweden, and her cousin had asked us for dinner,” Ferrell recalled. “It was in the month of May, and my wife asked, ‘Should we sit down and watch Eurovision?’ I said, ‘What is that?’ and she said, ‘You don’t know what Eurovision is?’ It was the night of the final, and I just sat there in front of the TV transfixed as to what was going on.”

The experience ultimately gave Ferrell the idea for his 2020 movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.

She’s an avid art collector

After earning a bachelor’s degree in art history from Pomona College, according to ArtNews, Paulin got her start in the auction world at the now-defunct Butterfield & Butterfield before becoming an auctioneer at Los Angeles Modern Auctions.

While it’s unclear whether Paulin still works as an auctioneer, she and Ferrell have built an impressive art collection over the years. Their collection includes works by Ed Ruscha, Richard Diebenkorn, Frederick Hammersley, Karl Benjamin and John McLaughlin, among others.

They also own a series of alphabet prints by John Baldessari, which helped teach their children to read.

She has some acting credits

Paulin has several acting credits to her name. She appeared in Ferrell’s 1998 film A Night at the Roxbury as Porsche Girl and portrayed Swedish author Anton Bjornberg’s wife in TV Land’s Younger.

Paulin and Ferrell also joined forces to perform the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Free Bird” as a send-off for comedian Conan O’Brien on his last night of hosting The Tonight Show in 2010. The couple also made a cameo in 2025’s A Very Jonas Christmas.

They met in an acting class

Ferrell and Paulin first crossed paths while attending the same acting class in Los Angeles. In July 2012, Ferrell told Elle that he and Paulin dated briefly in their early days before becoming friends.

They stayed friends when Ferrell left California after being cast on Saturday Night Live in New York City. Ferrell was in another relationship at the time.

“Viv and I would talk as friends for two hours, and it would feel like five minutes, and then my girlfriend would call, and after 15 minutes I’d be like, ‘God, it’s really late here on the East Coast. I should get some sleep,’ ” the Elf actor recalled. “For me, Viv was the one that got away.”

Luckily, when Ferrell came back to L.A. on a visit, Paulin confessed that she felt the same way. “I was stunned,” Ferrell said. “I didn’t play it cool at all. I went, ‘I just told my uncle that I’m going to marry you one day!’ ”

He added, “We started over — after a five-year friendship, we literally started courting each other.”

Ferrell also shared the comedic way in which he courted her.

“She totally got my sense of humor,” he said. “I sent her flowers every day for a week with a card like, ‘You’re the fifth-prettiest woman in the office.’ She loved it. We had a shorthand with each other.”

Ferrell and Paulin got married in 2000

Ferrell and Paulin tied the knot in 2000, following his slightly awkward proposal that “started serious but ended up comedic,” as he told PEOPLE in 2006.

“I took her to this beach where we had had one of our first dates,” he recalled. “She wanted none of it. She was, like, ‘The beach is creepy at night.’ I was, like, ‘Shut up, this is supposed to be really romantic.’ ”

Paulin’s comment, however, threw off the comedian’s concentration.

“I was trying to think of what I was going to say, and it just turned into, ‘So I, uh, really like you and, uh, anyway …’ Then I went down to a knee — at least I think I did — and proposed,” Ferrell said. “So it was kind of funny, but not on purpose.”

She and Ferrell share three sons

The couple became parents in March 2004 when they welcomed their first son, Magnus. Their family expanded in December 2006 and January 2010 when sons Mattias and Axel were born.

In May 2025, Magnus, who is a musician, opened up to PEOPLE about what it’s like living at home with his famous dad now that he’s an adult, admitting that while it can be hard to get his “personal space,” he still appreciates the time with his parents.

“I love my family so much,” he said. “I love hanging out with them.”

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