Candid new photos suggest two big noughties stars are quietly dating

These candid backstage photos suggest that two big movie stars from the early noughties are quietly dating each other.

Two big noughties movies stars have been spotted holding hands after seeing a movie together, suggesting they may be quietly dating.

She’s All That and Josie and the Pussycats actress Rachael Leigh Cook, 45, was spotted hand-in-hand with former Superman actor Brandon Routh, also 45, in Los Angeles over the weekend.

The pair seemed very happy together as they waited in line, Cook holding Routh’s hand and at one point putting her arm around his back.

Just a couple of noughties cuties: Brandon Routh and Rachael Leigh Cook. Picture: Yolo / BACKGRID

Holding hands … Picture: Yolo / BACKGRID

All smiles. Picture: Yolo / BACKGRID

Celeb outlet Just Jared, who first reported the news, said the pair may have been dating for months – they made a joint appearance on the Instagram page of a restaurant in Iowa after dining together back in February.

Routh (left) and Cook (right) posed for photos during this February visit to an Iowa restaurant.

Routh is best known for playing Superman in the 2006 film Superman Returns, a one-film entry into the DC Comics franchise after a sequel planned for 2009 was cancelled. The franchise was later rebooted with Henry Cavill for Man of Steel in 2013.

Touchy-feely at the parking pay station. Picture: Yolo / BACKGRID

He was previously married to actress Courtney Ford in 2007 – the couple have a son together, however Ford filed for divorce in January of this year citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Routh shot to fame as Superman in 2006. Picture: AP

Rachael Leigh Cook (c) in Josie and the Pussycats.

While Cook’s career as an actress and model started when she was just a child, she’s best known for her starring role in the 1999 teen comedy She’s All That alongside Freddie Prinze Jr. and for playing the titular role in Josie and the Pussycats two years later.

She wed Canadian actor Daniel Gillies in 2004, and the pair had two children together before they divorced in 2021.

Cook said in a 2021 interview that, despite her string of box office hits around the turn of the millennium, she never saw herself as being in contention with some of the other big young actresses of the time.

“I never saw myself as shiny and pretty in the way that someone like Jessica Alba or Jennifer Love Hewitt were then,” she told The Independent.

“They were the pretty girls and I thought of myself as far quirkier. If that was true, I do not know. But I was never at the top of the pretty-girl list.”

Originally published as Candid new photos suggest two big noughties stars are quietly dating