She was romantically linked to Sir Mick Jagger and Daniel Day Lewis before finding love with Fleabag star Fiona Shaw and later marrying then divorcing screenwriter Alison Balian, but British actress Saffron Burrows appears to have finally found her happily-ever-after.
The You and Troy star, 53, is in a relationship with Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozeman, 67, one of Hollywood’s most respected directors whose credits include Mansfield Park, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing and When Night Is Falling.
The women met several years before Saffron’s marriage to Alison, then a producer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and the co-parent of her two children, ended in 2020.
Patricia directed Saffron in a 2016 episode of the Golden Globe-winning Amazon Prime series Mozart in the Jungle, in which Saffron played Cynthia Taylor, a cellist with the New York Symphony who has a secret affair with a woman.
Saffron paid tribute to Patricia this week when she posted a photo of them on Instagram for her birthday, writing, ‘It’s my birthday and I get to share it with my beautiful person…’
In the snap, the pair are seated at the back of a taxi and look loved up as Saffron places her arms around Patricia’s neck in a warm embrace.
British actress Saffron Burrows appears to have finally found her happily-ever-after with Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozeman
Earlier this month in London, the couple joined their friend, Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville (centre0, for a screening of Patricia’s 1999 film Mansfield Park
She also refers to her lovingly on social media as ‘my girlfriend’.
Patricia, who has long championed LGBTQ+ representation in film, shares two daughters with her former partner, Canadian composer Lesley Barber.
Earlier this month in London, the couple joined their friend, Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville, for a screening of Patricia’s 1999 film Mansfield Park, in which Hugh starred opposite Jonny Lee Miller and Lindsay Duncan.
Saffron and Patricia posted pictures on Instagram from the event, with Saffron describing it playfully as ‘a joyous night where Hugh chimed in with witticisms at the Q&A – his character named ‘he of the too high hair’.’
Over the years, Saffron has attracted a string of famous admirers from acting legend Sir Daniel Day-Lewis to rock star Sir Mick Jagger.
She also dated the actor Alan Cumming – before he came out as gay – and lived with her then-partner, film director Mike Figgis, before finding love with stage and screen star Fiona Shaw.
Despite her high-profile relationships, lasting love seemed to elude her. Now, friends say, she’s finally found the one.
‘Patricia is brilliant, compassionate and incredibly clever,’ says a source close to the pair. ‘She makes Saffron very happy.’
Saffron is bisexual and shares her two children with her ex-wife, American screenwriter Alison Balian (pictured together in 2016)
Seen with Mick Jagger
Saffron was raised in north London by her mother, equal-rights activist and teacher Susie Burrows, and modelled as a teenager before moving into acting.
Her breakout roles in Circle of Friends, Enigma and Deep Blue Sea led to a long career spanning Hollywood and British television.
She later became known for her scene-stealing turns in Boston Legal, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Netflix’s You, where she played Dottie Quinn opposite Penn Badgley’s manipulative serial killer Joe Goldberg.
Saffron has also long been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion. She came out publicly as bisexual in 1999 and has said she has always viewed love through a lens of curiosity rather than conformity.
‘As a kid, I was always drawn to who I thought were the most interesting people in the room – sometimes boys, sometimes girls,’ she said earlier this year. ‘My mum gave me the right to love who I wanted to love – and I’ve lived by that.’
In 2013, she married Alison Balian. The couple share two children but separated amicably several years after they tied the knot.
Saffron has openly discussed the challenges of being a bisexual woman in Hollywood, saying in 2021: ‘I navigated my way the best I could,’ adding that the landscape ‘was very different’ even 10 years ago.
‘I’d say every industry was incredibly pro-straight and pro-heterosexual, and that wasn’t exclusive to Hollywood, but it certainly was not an environment where that would be welcomed.’
Patricia is one of Canada’s most admired auteurs who burst onto the international scene in 1987 when her debut film I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing won the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes.
She went on to direct the sensual romantic drama When Night Is Falling and a radical feminist take on Mansfield Park – as well as acclaimed television projects including Mozart in the Jungle and Anne with an E.
