Joseph Zada and Polly Talarico have been quietly dating for a while, and if you had not clocked it yet, you are far from alone. Zada keeps his personal life close, and Talarico is, if anything, even more private.
Who Is Joseph Zada’s Girlfriend Polly Talarico?
According to fan accounts, Joseph Zada and Polly Talarico have been together for some time, though neither has made any kind of formal announcement. What fans have pieced together comes mostly from Instagram Stories, usually posted without tags, where the pair occasionally share pictures of each other.
Talarico has been spotted on the set of We Were Liars and posted a close-up of Zada on her Instagram Stories for his birthday. Low-key, yes. But the evidence has stacked up enough that his devoted fan base, including the account ZadaCrave, has been tracking the relationship for a while.
Zada had a solo appearance on the red carpet at GQ Australia’s Men of the Year event in March 2026, but later shared behind-the-scenes pictures with Talarico on his Instagram Stories from the same occasion. That is the pattern with these two: keep the public moment separate, then quietly let a little in afterwards.
In a Vanity Fair profile published in June 2025, when Zada was announced as the leading man of The Hunger Games franchise, he mentioned an unnamed girlfriend who had him star in a short film for her virtual acting class during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether that was Talarico is unclear, but it is the closest thing to a public acknowledgement either of them has offered.
Joseph Zada’s Role in Sunrise on the Reaping
Zada will play Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, the next instalment in the franchise. Per Deadline, Whitney Peak is set to play Lenore Dove Baird, Haymitch’s girlfriend in the film.
The wider cast is shaping up to be a serious one. According to Elle, Glenn Close will play Drusilla Sickle, escort to the District 12 Tributes, while Billy Porter is set to appear as Magno Stift, Sickle’s distant husband and the Tributes’ designer. That is a cast that puts some real weight behind Zada’s leading-man debut in the franchise.
The teaser trailer arrived in November 2025, giving fans their first proper look at the project. Production was scheduled to begin in July 2025, with the film set for release on 20 November 2026.
Given the scale of the press cycle that kind of release typically brings, Zada and Talarico are likely to face a lot more public attention between now and that date. If the pattern holds, expect the occasional Instagram Stories glimpse and not much else.
Zada is already known to audiences from We Were Liars and Invisible Boys, but Sunrise on the Reaping is a different scale entirely. The Haymitch role puts him at the centre of one of the biggest franchise releases of 2026. For more on the film’s cast and release, Cosmopolitan has been tracking developments as the project builds towards its November premiere.