Zoe Lister-Jones debuted relationship with nonbinary filmmaker Sammi Cohen

Zoe Lister-Jones officially debuted her relationship with nonbinary filmmaker Sammi Cohen this weekend at the Independent Spirit Awards.

The actor, writer, director, and producer, whose streaming series Slip was up for two awards, walked the red carpet Sunday night hand-in-hand with her new romantic partner. When The Hollywood Reporter asked about her date, Lister-Jones replied, “I’m here, I’m queer, I have some fear, but I’m working through it.”

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The The Craft: Legacy writer/director was previously married to fellow actor and filmmaker Daryl Wein. But on a 2021 episode of Marc Marons’s WTF podcast, Lister-Jones said that the couple had separated, revealing that they had been “in and out of an open relationship.”

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“It’s why I have so much indigestion,” she joked at the time.

On an August 2023 episode of podcast Two Dykes and a Mic, Lister-Jones explained that she truly began to explore her sexual identity around the time of her divorce.

Host McKenzie Goodwin asked the 41-year-old if she felt like a late bloomer “now that you identify as queer.”

“Yeah,” Lister-Jones said. “Like, I knew, obviously, but I just didn’t have… the wherewithal to get my fingers in the paint, so to speak.”

“Now I’m a free bird,” she said later in the show. “Watch your purses!”

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A post shared by Zoe Lister-Jones (@zoelisterjones)

On Sunday night’s red carpet, THR asked Lister-Jones about the Independent Spirit Awards’ gender-neutral acting categories. Film Independent, the nonprofit that hands out the awards, is one of a growing number of awards-giving bodies that no longer separates performances into gendered categories.

“I’m so grateful to Film Independent for being pioneers in that area,” she said. “All award shows should follow in their footsteps and make categories genderless. I’m dating a non-binary person, I’m friends with so many non-binary people, and without really shifting the paradigm in a larger way, it’s closing a lot of doors for really important voices.”

Of Cohen, who directed the 2023 Adam Sandler comedy You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, Lister-Jones said, “They’re an amazing filmmaker in their own right.”

“The Independent Spirit Awards is about independence of spirit. It’s about defying categorization. It’s about defying formula,” she continued. “It’s also where I’ve been recognized for my work this awards season, and so I’m really proud to be here on many fronts, in terms of my work and also where I’m at in my life.”