Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen's Relationship Timeline: A Look Back

English actress — and self-admitted Ryan Reynolds lookalike — Kate Beckinsale and Welsh actor Michael Sheen first crossed paths while working together in 1995. The Guilty Party star told Cinema.com that once she met Sheen, her "life changed dramatically." During the course of their relationship, Sheen became the defender of her honor (more on that ahead), as well as the father to their first child together.

Though their breakup in 2003 wasn't without its drama (Beckinsale married her and Sheen's Underworld director Len Wiseman in 2004, shortly after they split), the exes truly loved each other and seemingly still do as friends and co-parents. Just look at how they handle modern family life with their daughter, Lily Mo, whom they welcomed in 1999.

Years after they separated, Beckinsale told Evening Standard in 2016, "I really love him and like him, and we make each other roar with laughter."

Here's a look back at Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen's relationship.

1995: Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen first meet

According to People, a then-22-year-old Beckinsale and 26-year-old Sheen met during rehearsals in a touring production of The Seagull in 1995, marking Beckinsale's professional theater debut. 

"I was all revved up to feel very intimidated," Beckinsale reportedly told This Is London Magazine. "It was my first-ever play, and my mother had cut out reviews of [Sheen] in previous productions. And then he walked in ... It was almost like, 'God, well, I'm finished now. That's it, then.' ... He's the most outrageously talented person I've ever met."

By October of that same year, Sheen accompanied his girlfriend to the London premiere of Haunted, a horror film in which she starred.

January 31, 1999: Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen welcome their first child together

Nearly four years into their relationship, Beckinsale gave birth to daughter, Lily, the first and only child for both actors. She has followed in her parents' footsteps despite telling People in 2022 that Beckinsale "definitely would've preferred" if she had become a doctor.

"My parents are great about pushing me out and letting me fly and become the person that I want to be," she said. "To become the actor that I want to be."

2000: Michael Sheen defends Kate Beckinsale

Though Tony Blair's on-screen doppelgänger doesn't exactly strike us as the violent type, common courtesy went out the door when it came to Beckinsale. Sheen once punched his then-girlfriend's The Golden Bowl co-star Jeremy Northam after he began yelling at the new mom on set over a flubbed line, per New York Daily News.

"Jeremy and I had a disagreement about something. So I'm also taking care of Lily, who was just six months old at the time, and I was still breast-feeding, and then Michael came down to the set to pick her up and suddenly sees this man yelling at me," Beckinsale recounted to Cinema.com in 2001. "So, naturally, he got very upset, and that was that."

The altercation didn't do too much social damage, though. 

Beckinsale explained, "The truth is, he's never hit anyone before in his life, and it was kind of shocking, but in a weird way, it really broke the ice ,and it was all OK after that. I actually had a good time making the film." 

Sheen also discussed the incident in 2009, defending his actions to The Guardian, "It was because I thought he was being disrespectful to someone I loved." 

Word to the wise: Don't mess with Sheen's family.

2003: Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen break up

Beckinsale and Sheen split in 2003, and later, Beckinsale married Wiseman. Though the tabloids reported that the Van Helsing actress had left her beau for Wiseman, she maintained there was nothing salacious about the breakup.

“The popular notion of how Michael and I broke up — that we were on [the first Underworld] and I ran off with the director [Wiseman] — is just not true," Beckinsale told Entertainment Weekly in 2012. "If that were the case, I think it would be very difficult and peculiar to have an OK situation."

Beckinsale's ex and her then-husband got along — er, famously. 

"I love Michael. Michael's fantastic. It shouldn't necessarily have gone on and on forever with us, but he is one of my absolutely favorite people ever," Beckinsale told The Wave Magazine, per People, in 2008. "I think we both felt that it was really important for Lily, our daughter, to have everybody coming from the same place."

She added, "[Michael] loves her, and I love her, and Len loves her. Everyone's nice. The guys both get along. I do feel like that's my major achievement of the last decade, that my daughter is totally unscathed and great. I am proud of that."

The same could be said for Beckinsale and her relationships with Sheen's girlfriends, telling Evening Standard, "Having as many strong females in your teenage daughter's life as possible is a good thing."