Zach Gilford and Liana Liberato are proving you can fall in love anywhere — including on the set of a serial killer-focused TV show.
The Criminal Minds costars are dating, a rep confirmed to Us Weekly on Tuesday, November 25, shortly after Gilford, 43, and Liberato, 30, were spotted on a red carpet together.
“They started dating after they worked together,” a source tells Us, noting that the romance is “fairly new.”
The insider confirms that Gilford and Liberato went to People and InStyle’s Drive-By Party “together” on Friday, November 21, in Las Vegas ahead of the annual Grand Prix in Sin City.
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“They were both invited. It’s the first event they have been at together,” the source adds.
Gilford and Liberato were introduced while working on season 17 of Criminal Minds — also known as season 2 of Criminal Minds: Evolution — in 2024.
Liberato had a recurring role as Jade Waters on the procedural, while Gilford has been playing villain Elias Voit since 2022’s season 16.
Prior to crossing paths with Liberato on set in 2024, Gilford worked on Criminal Minds with his now-estranged wife, Kiele Sanchez.
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“It’s harder because I don’t want to hold a gun to my wife’s head,” Gilford exclusively told Us in August 2024 of working with Sanchez, 48, on the dark show. “It just happened to be that the nature of these scenes were pretty gross.”
Gilford recalled that most of his season 16 and 17 scenes with Sanchez were violent in nature, which didn’t exactly sit well with the actor.
“Honestly, all those scenes are so f***ed up. I’ll only speak for myself. Kiele can obviously speak for herself, but it felt gross [bringing those darker moments to life together],” he confessed.
During his first season on Criminal Minds: Evolution, which aired during 2022, Gilford’s Voit was unveiled as a prolific serial killer hiding in plain sight. He managed to keep his secret from his wife, Sydney (Sanchez), until the Behavior Analysis Unit (BAU) started to close in on him.
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As Voit struggled to manage hallucinations that had him killing his wife and kids, Gilford had to navigate their work-life balance.
“We’ve worked together several times and in very different situations,” Gilford recalled to Us in August 2024. “But there’s a theme on set when you are coworkers but also a married couple. It’s kind of trying to walk that tightrope.”
Sanchez’s final Criminal Minds episode titled “Kingdom of the Blind” was the same one in which Liberato made her debut in June 2024.
Less than one year later, Gilford filed for divorce from Sanchez in April after 12 years of marriage. The exes share two children, daughter Zeppelin and Revel, born in 2017 and 2020, respectively.
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Liberato, meanwhile, has kept her dating life private ahead of stepping out with Gilford over the weekend. The actress, however, has been part of Hollywood for some time, making her TV debut on an episode of Cold Case in 2005.
She has since starred on Light as a Feather and Based on a True Story in addition to being part of the Banana Split and Scream VI cast.
Gilford, for his part, has become a TV staple, starring on Friday Night Lights from 2006 to 2011, The Mob Doctor from 2012 to 2013, L.A.’s Finest from 2019 to 2020, Good Girls from 2018 to 2021 and The Midnight Club in 2022.
