Alfred Molina, Jennifer Lee wed in garden ceremony officiated by ‘Frozen’ matchmaker
Here’s a story to melt that “Frozen” heart: Jennifer Lee, director of the Disney franchise, has married actor Alfred Molina, and it was ice hunter Kristoff who brought them together.
Molina, 68, and Lee, 49, announced their marriage Monday in photos she posted on Instagram. Present at the ceremony was mutual friend Jonathan Groff, the actor who voiced the animated outdoorsman who becomes Princess Anna’s love interest and ultimately her fiancé. In pictures, Groff appears to have officiated.
“We did. We do,” Lee wrote, captioning a series of photos from the ceremony, including one of herself in a sequined, short-sleeve, tea-length dress.
In another photo, Molina appears to shed tears of joy, holding his hands to his face in one shot from the sunny, garden wedding.
Of a photo showing herself and Groff chatting at a table surrounded by flowers, Lee said, “This beautiful, generous soul is the reason Fred and I met. We owe him the world.”
Florian Zeller’s drama “The Father” stars Alfred Molina as a man whose slippery grip on reality places the audience in storytelling quicksand.
Molina, known for “Spider-Man 2,” “Frida” and myriad other projects, voiced King Agnarr, father to Anna and Elsa and ruler of Arendelle, in “Frozen II.”
He was previously wed for 34 years to British actress and novelist Jill Gascoine, who died in April 2020 at 83 after announcing in 2013 that she had Alzheimer’s disease. Molina told the Guardian in 2016 that his first marriage was “in a strange place” at that time because Gascoine was in a “very advanced” stage of the disease and had been in a home providing specialized care since 2014.
“It has been tough, but no tougher than what a lot of others go through,” he said at the time. “I went to a support group and to therapy for people in my situation; the stories I heard of sacrifice and hardship made me realize I had nothing to complain about.”
Lee, who is also a prolific screenwriter, is divorced from Robert Monn, with whom she shares a daughter, Agatha.
Lee discussed her relationship with the man she calls “Fred” in a 2019 New York Times article, saying, “I’m very happy in my family life and he’s very caring and very good to my daughter. And so I feel lucky.”
Oscars 2014: ‘Frozen’s’ Jennifer Lee on being a female director
Prior to that, during her first awards season run in 2014, Lee ‘fessed up to her biggest challenge on the way to the Oscars.
“The hardest part about being a female director has had nothing to do with the film production at all,” she wrote in an amusing essay for the Los Angeles Times. “For me, at least, it all comes down to the red carpet.
“I’m a newbie to cameras, fancy dresses, strappy heels and makeup (I normally wear jeans to work and shoes I can kick off easily and leave beneath my chair),” she continued. “Going into all this, I didn’t know my measurements (I preferred to think that I didn’t have any).”
In her wedding pictures, however, Lee looks perfectly comfortable. What a difference a few years — and a new love affair — make.
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