Liza Colón-Zayas has been in dozens of shows and movies throughout her long career, but it was her breakout role in The Bear that won her an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2024. With her star on the rise, fans have developed an interest in Colón-Zayas’s personal life and her marriage with husband David Zayas, which has been going strong for almost 30 years.
Here’s everything to know about the actor and his relationship with Colón-Zayas so far.
Who is David Zayas?
Like his wife, Zayas is an actor. In an interview with HoboTrashCan in 2008, he shared that he was born in Puerto Rico before moving to New York City and being raised in the Bronx. He joined the Air Force as a security policeman and then became a police officer in the early ’90s. He’d always had an interest in acting and began to take it seriously at the same time.
“I started taking acting classes,” he shared. “I started doing a lot of theatre while I was a cop as well. One thing led to another, I started getting a lot of theatre work, a lot of plays. I joined this theatre company called LAByrinth with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Calderon, and John Ortiz, all them guys. I started doing a lot of plays with them and started working in the local shows in New York, Law and Order, NYPD Blue, New York Undercover. And then I got this show, The Beat, with Tom Fontana, I got a good part in it. Then that show got cancelled and he wrote this part for me on Oz, which I did for three years.”
But Zayas is perhaps best known for his role on Dexter as Detective Angel Bautista. Colón-Zayas appeared on Dexter in one episode in 2010, where she played Paloma Aragon, the mother of a murdered girl who is comforted by Zayas’s character, Detective Bautista. In one scene, he holds her as she weeps.
More recently, Zayas has starred on The Bear, playing her character’s husband. In July 2024, Colón-Zayas talked to Variety about “Napkins,” the sixth episode of season three, which delves much more deeply into the life of her character, Tina Marrero, showing her life with her husband outside of the restaurant.
“He [Zayas] came to visit me in Chicago [during an earlier season], and I brought him to set one day, and they were fans,” she shared. “Chris said, ‘Do you think he’d want to be on the show?’ And I said, ‘I think so.’ I didn’t know know in what capacity—I think somebody said, ‘your ex,’ and then that got me thinking, but I didn’t want to get too deep into it. Then he ends up being written as this beautiful, decent, loving, good man, which I was really happy to see.”
She continued, “I honestly didn’t expect it. It speaks to how even I have been programmed to look at my community. Like, why can’t I have that? Why can’t that be the norm? There’s struggle and there’s mess, but there’s love, and in its own way, stability….He was so happy to be there, and and got along with everybody. He’s played a lot of villains, and just to be this really, genuinely good man—he was so excited. And we’ve worked together over the last 28 years. I love working with him. Like Tina and his character, he grounds me.”
In July 2024, in an interview with ELLE, Colón-Zayas talked a bit more about the episode when she was asked if there was “a scene in particular” she was “really nervous about or looking forward to” on the set of The Bear.
“I knew I was gonna be fine with my husband,” she said. “We’ve worked together before, and just like in real life, he holds me down in the best way. He’s my rock.”
She also addressed the working relationship in an August 2024 episode of The Tonight Show:
How long have they been married?
According to The Prestige, they were married on Nov. 21, 1998.
Do they have any children?
Zayas told HoboTrashCan that he was married and had two children from a previous relationship, before getting divorced in the early ’90s. He has wished a happy birthday to his daughter, Leeanna, on Instagram.
He has also wished a happy Mother’s Day to Colón-Zayas, but neither one has shared much about their parenting dynamic in interviews, so it’s unclear whether they share biological children, or if he was celebrating her as a stepmother.
What else have they said about one another?
When Colón-Zayas made history as the first Latina to win an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2024, she mentioned her husband in her acceptance speech.
Zayas later shared a photo of Colon-Zayas holding her award on Instagram, writing in the caption, “Emmy Award Winner Liza Colon Zayas. So proud of her. Great night.”
In a June 2023 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Colón-Zayas offered a peek into their relationship. The star said she liked to cook at home, specifically a Puerto Rican recipe for sopa de pollo, which she shared with the publication.
She added some more context to how the couple eats, saying, “For breakfast, typically, my husband will order us: some bacon, egg and cheese. Dave will cook once in a while, but that’s his go-to. We’ll watch our shows and we’ll talk shit over our diner sandwiches.”
That same month, Zayas wished his wife a happy birthday, sharing a gorgeous photo with the words, “Happy Birthday to this Queen today. 😘😘😘”
In an interview with Shondaland in June 2023, Colón-Zayas shared how her husband kept her motivated in her acting career even when she felt discouraged.
“There was always something—I don’t know if it was the ancestors or just something inside me that knew I had something to share, and that kept me going,” she says. “My LAByrinth community kept me going, and I have the best husband, David Zayas, an actor, and he kept me going.”
They attended the Golden Globes in January 2025.
The couple looked stunning at the annual Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles.
David stopped to give Liza a kiss on the red carpet.
