Who Is Viveca Paulin? New Details About Will Ferrell's Wife, Including Why Their Marriage Is In Trouble

Will Ferrell got a slew of bad reviews for his recent film Holmes and Watson, and he isn’t taking it well. Recently, reports say the funnyman is struggling to get back on his feet after being nominated as for the “Worst Actor” Golden Raspberry award. He’s been spending a lot of time on the golf course and it’s reportedly taking a toll on his marriage.

Ferrell and his wife Viveca Paulin have been married since 2000 and have three sons together. She’s known him for most of his career but this turn toward self-pity and the constant golf are getting on her nerves.

Who is Viveca Paulin? Read on for all the details about Will Ferrell's wife.

1. She's Swedish

Paulin is native to Sweden, though she later moved to California. She attended Pomona College and earned a BA in art history.

Rather than becoming an artist herself, she began working in auction houses as an auctioneer. Later, she herself became an art collector. In addition, she founded the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Contemporary Friends, which helps the museum acquire new pieces for their collection.

2. They met in an acting class.

Paulin took some acting classes in the mid 1990s and that’s where she met Ferrell.

He was with the comedy group The Groundlings at the time. They started dating but Ferrell was hired to work at Saturday Night Live and moved to New York before they got chance to get too serious. Despite, the distance, they found themselves talking on the phone for hours every night and Ferrell would later say that he always feared Paulin would be the “one who got away.”

3. They quickly got serious.

Paulin evidently didn’t want to risk Ferrell getting away and she invited him out one night when he was back in LA during a hiatus from Saturday Night Live. In an interview with Elle, Ferrell describes her way of asking him to be in a relationship with her.

“She drank her beer in two sips— just pounded it. She was like, ‘Do you want another one?’ I was like, [incredulous] Yeah, okay. She quickly drank that one, too. And she said, ‘I think I still like you.’ I was stunned. 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 laughs. “Then we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. So she drove me home, and I went in for the kiss, and she gave me the cheek. I was like, What does this all mean?”

4. They have three sons together.

The couple married in 2000 and have three sons together: Magnus Paulin Ferrell, 14, Mattias Paulin Ferrell 12, and Axel Paulin Ferrell, 9. Axel was actually born only hours after Paulin appeared with Ferrell on the last televised episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. She also appeared in his 1998 film Night At the Roxbury.

Ferrell says his favorite thing about Paulin is that she’s cool with his sense of humor, saying, “What I love most about Viv is very simple. She totally got my sense of humor. 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.”

5. Holmes and Watson took a toll on their marriage.

Ferrell’s 2018 movie Holmes and Watson, he appears with frequent co-star John C. Reilly, has gotten terrible reviews. The site Rotten Tomatoes says “The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson than does ‘Holmes & Watson.’”

Ferrell is even nominated for “Worst Actor” Golden Raspberry award. But the legendary funnyman doesn’t have a sense of humor about this. Radar Online reports that he’s spending hours on the golf course, trying to find inspiration and solace with the other comedians in his foursome.

6. And Paulin is unhappy about it.

But Paulin doesn’t find anything funny about a husband who’s spending all his time on the links, leaving her to manage her career and their three sons. Now Paulin’s patience is running short.

“She understands Will being sensitive about his reviews," a source close to the couple. "But she’s not ready to be a golf widow.”

Will Ferrell find his way home to save his marriage? Time will tell.

Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.