Sam Worthington and Lara Worthington (née Bingle) have been married for almost 12 years, tying the knot in a private ceremony in December 2014.

But despite major public profiles in Australia and America, with Sam most recently leading Harlon Coben’s I Will Find You on Netflix, the couple has kept their relationship and family life very private.

Only a handful of times have they given the public a glimpse of their private lives — otherwise, they’ve stepped almost completely away from the spotlight.

Now, in a new interview, Lara has shared why the couple chose to do so.

The pair first met in New York at a festival in Central Park. Then they began dating, first romantically linked in late 2013.

Soon after they met, Lara said she knew marriage was on the cards.

“I said, ‘Mum, I’m going to get married’. And she was like, ‘What? You’ve just met this guy’,” Lara recounted on the Kyle and Jackie O Show.

“It normally takes a long time for me to trust, but we did get married. You just know.”

In December 2014, the pair married in front of just 10 of their closest family and friends.

Sam and Lara Worthington in 2014. Image: Getty.

Describing it as “very intimate”, Lara said to the Kyle and Jackie O Show that they wanted something simple and family-oriented.

“Sam and I got married nearly a year ago on the 28th of December. We just popped into Melbourne where Sam’s family’s from, and we just had 10 people in a house we rented. We wrote our own vows,” she said at the time.

“I was in London right beforehand so it was really cold. But I ended up finding a white Louis Vuitton dress. I was six months pregnant, so it was really chilled, I cooked lunch.”

Shortly after they married, the pair moved to America, living in Los Angeles before relocating to New York City in 2022.

In 2015, the couple welcomed their firstborn son Rocket, then Racer came along in 2016, and River in 2020.

Since then, the couple have been notoriously private, keeping their three children out of the spotlight entirely.

It’s a conscious decision the couple made.

“All my children, I think, we’ve always protected them, that’s been a choice,” Lara said in an interview with Nine.com.au.

“It was always our choice to not put our kids out there from day dot.”

Lara told the publication she is “so glad” they made that decision “because they’re not everywhere”.

She added: “They can always choose what they want to do later but I think for the decade that they were babies, I think it’s nice to protect them as much as you can”.

In a 2022 interview with Variety, Sam said he and Lara’s decision to relocate from Australia to New York City wasn’t just focused on their careers. Rather, the decision revolved around “stricter laws about paparazzi” that meant they could better protect their children’s privacy.

As Lara said: “Sometimes our reality is difficult for them but we try hard to protect them. Both Sam and I understand it is a by-product of our profession, but taking photos of them without my consent is unacceptable. You don’t get much freedom. I can’t just go out, especially when he is feeding.”

Aside from a spattering of red carpets and interviews, the couple have maintained their privacy.

Ahead of their 10th wedding anniversary in 2024, the couple walked hand-in-hand along the red carpet at the GQ Men of the Year Awards.

“It’s always nice to attend these things together, to have your partner in crime,” Lara said at the event.

“My biggest achievement is 10 years with my wife,” Sam added, when Channel Nine asked if his GQ Man of the Year title was his proudest achievement.

When Avatar was released in 2009, it propelled Sam to global fame, which Sam said didn’t come without its challenges.

Speaking with Variety, he said that soon after, his drinking reached a concerning level and stayed that way for years to come. He explained that before a first-class flight, he would down four or five glasses of Champagne at the gate, and knew cities around the world “not in terms of neighbourhoods or monuments, but by favourite bars”.

“I couldn’t see it,” he said. “I thought it was normal. I didn’t like who I was. Drinking helped me get through the day. They could probably smell it on me, but when they looked at me, they couldn’t tell. I was still doing my job — I just don’t think I was doing it very well.

“I was an emotional drunk. I got more emotional and erratic the longer I drank. I don’t think I was mean, exactly, but I could be belligerent, petulant.”

Sam and Lara Worthington attend the 2024 GQ Men of the Year Awards, where they spoke about their upcoming anniversary.

He said that the drinking was a culmination of Australia’s ingrained drinking culture and the anxiety that came from his newfound fame. But it was Lara who managed to help him move on from drinking — via an ultimatum.

“You can do what you want, but I don’t need to be around this,” she told him. It was said with love, Sam noted, not anger or disappointment, and it encouraged him to get sober.

When the sequel came out, 13 years after the first Avatar movie, Sam said he was excited to see what it would bring but that he also worried about the impact of newfound fame on some of the younger actors in the cast.

“I feel protective. I want these kids to know that if there’s any issues or questions, they shouldn’t be scared to reach out. I’m not going to offer advice if they don’t want it, but I can help them navigate what happens when stardom hits them.”

As for Lara, she shared a similar sentiment, noting that fame brings plenty of ups and downs. But she said their marriage has kept them “grounded”.

“I’ve been through so many phases in my life and I’ve learnt that the people you surround yourself with are so important,” she said in a 2019 interview.

“Good people are my go-to. I don’t have to put on any facade with him [Sam], and moving to America has meant we’re able to live a really normal life. In fact, he’s more normal than me.”