The McCords are going strong.
Téa Leoni and Tim Daly first met playing husband and wife, Elizabeth McCord and Henry McCord, on the CBS show “Madam Secretary,” which aired from 2014 to 2019.
After 10 years of dating, the couple tied the knot in July.
Now, Daly, 69, is reflecting on meeting his wife on the six season political drama a decade ago.
When asked during an interview with LifeMinute to pinpoint the moment he realized he was in love with Leoni, 59, Daly immediately replied: “God, about four minutes after I met her at the office of ‘Madam Secretary.’”
The actor also reflected on the road to marriage.
“Well, I actually asked Téa to marry me, I think, about nine years ago, and she said, ‘Yes, let’s just wait a minute.’ Then nine years later, she asked me, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I already asked!’ So anyway, we got it done,” Daly said. “I like being married to Téa.”
Looking back at their romance, the “Wings” star joked: “Every time people said we had great chemistry, I was like, ‘Yeah, no s—!’”
“It was funny because our first season, we were supposedly trying to keep it quiet, be on the down low,” Daly recounted. “But the teamsters were picking us up at each other’s house all the time and we were looking at each other with goo goo eyes.”
The couple first stepped out together for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., in April 2015.
Daly and Leoni’s history started long before the CBS show. The pair actually attended the same boarding school — but a decade apart.
Prior to meeting on “Madam Secretary,” Daly recalled briefly seeing Leoni two other times.
“I was doing a fundraiser when I was doing ‘Wings.’ I was at Paramount, and she was there as a smoking hot 23-year-old. And I didn’t pay her any mind ’cause I was in the midst of all kinds of stuff,” he revealed.
“And then I met her again because her then-husband [David Duchovny] was friends with my first cousin, so I had just kind of shaken her hand a couple times,” Daly explained. “And then ‘Madam Secretary’ happened, and she just kind of caught me in her tractor beam and I was terrified. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Anyway, it was quick.”
When it comes to conversations, the “Leanne” actor told LifeMinute that nothing is off the table, “including the bad stuff.”
“I’ve recently started to try to have some gratitude for the things that have been really challenging and painful because I wouldn’t be here without all that stuff,” Daly confessed. “And so being able to share all of that with my partner is a relief. It just creates an atmosphere of real trust.”
And it seems that Leoni also felt their relationship was written in the stars.
“If [Téa] were here she would tell this story, but she was still at this little boarding school in Vermont, the Putney School, when I made ‘Diner.’ And it was a little bit of a splash because this kid from this school is in this movie that’s getting attention,” Daly detailed. “And she saw the movie, and she told her roommate that she was gonna marry me someday, having never met me. She gets what she wants!”
Leoni was previously married to Duchovny, 65, from 1997 to 2014. The exes share daughter West, 26, and son Kyd, 23.
For his part, Daly tied the knot with Amy Van Nostrand in 1982 and welcomed son Sam, 41, and Emelyn, 26. They split in 2010.
In 2024, Daly gushed over his now-wife, calling her “a miracle.”
“I never thought that I would experience something like that at my age and I’d sort of come to terms with maybe being alone or maybe being in some kind of casual thing that wasn’t really too demanding and then we met and it all changed,” he said during an appearance on the “Really Famous with Kara Mayer Robinson” podcast. “It’s the deepest, most fun, most truly intimate relationship I’ve ever had.”
“It’s a profound relief to be able to be your entire self and know that someone is not going to blame you or try to change you,” gushed Daly.
Meanwhile, in the early days of their romance, everyone behind the scenes of “Madam Secretary” was on board.
Co-star Geoffrey Arend shared with People in 2015 that “nobody really knew.”
“You don’t want to go to your boss and be like, ‘Hey, so who are you dating?’ So now I think we’re all really protective. Tim’s the best — they’re really good together.”
Series creator Barbara Hall also agreed, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2019, “They are the most perfect couple, and it really is a wonderful thing to have been part of. I don’t know if I take credit for it, though!”
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