James Spader shares two sons, Sebastian and Elijah, with his ex-wife Victoria Kheel, and one son, Nathaneal, with his partner Leslie Stefanson
might be known for playing antagonists and morally ambiguous characters, but in real life, he’s a family man — and father to three kids: Sebastian, Elijah and Nathaneal.
The Blacklist actor first became a father in 1989 with the birth of his son Sebastian, whom he welcomed with his wife at the time, Victoria Kheel. Elijah followed three years later, in 1992. After Spader and Kheel divorced in 2004, and the actor started dating his current partner, Leslie Stefanson. Together, he and Stefanson welcomed their only child together, Nathaneal, in 2008.
While Spader has been in the public eye for over four decades, he keeps his personal life private, and that’s partly due to his children. Spader embraces being an average father to his kids, including sharing his struggles with technology.
“I have no computer, no electronics in my life. I have this broken phone. It rings, I’ll flip it open and the act of doing that shuts the phone off,” he told in 2009. “[My sons are] in a constant state of shaking their heads in dismay and probably embarrassment.”
From their careers to their hobbies and interests, here’s everything to know about James Spader’s three children.
Sebastian Spader, 35
Sebastian Spader was born in 1989 to Spader and Kheel. In 1993, the actor told Interview magazine that his birth changed the way Spader moved through life, making him reevaluate his health.
“The other day, we took a walk in the hills, on the fire trail. I was walking along, kicking a stone, and I turned around and there was a little two-and-a-half-foot guy, kicking a little stone along beside me,” he said. “It gives you pause for thought when you light up a cigarette — one of these days, I’m going to have to face up to stopping smoking again.”
Sebastian attended Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles and then New York University, before beginning his career in the camera and editorial departments of the film industry, per his . However, Spader never pushed his children to join the industry.
“My younger son has done plays at school and he was great and my eldest came to intern on the TV show,” Spader told The Independent. “I will present them with limitless options but acting has to be right for you.”
Sebastian became a producer but eventually changed careers and began work as a realtor across the L.A. area. Before becoming a realtor, he lived in Austin for two years while working at Troublemaker Studios.
He is interested in photography, particularly portraits, and has published a book, Wondering. In 2016, he told blog site Absolute Music Chat that he hadn’t originally set out to publish his work, but once he noticed a theme, he felt it made sense.
“I had been shooting for 4 years without any goal or structure, just shoving my negatives in a closet after I got them developed,” he said. “Once I began going through them though, I found a few consistencies in style or subject matter that must have formed subconsciously while I was shooting. And being that the theme of the book ended up relying quite heavily on juxtaposition and the story created by that, I was very surprised at how naturally the photos fell into sequence.”
In addition to photography, Sebastian said he also enjoys traveling and has visited countries such as Spain, Portugal and Mongolia.
Elijah Spader, 32
Elijah Spader was born in 1992 to Spader and Kheel. Spader told The Independent in 2009 that Elijah was “great” in his school plays, and the talent seemed to persist when he eventually attended L.A. Film School from 2019 to 2021.
According to his profile, he began working as a mix technician at Sony Pictures Entertainment in November 2019.
Today, Elijah is a mix engineer and guitarist, with some of his credits including Barry and even his father’s show, The Blacklist.
“So glad I got to work on the last few seasons of this show before the series finale tonight! Such a blast!” he wrote on in July 2023.
In addition to sound mixing, Elijah is an artist, often posting about clay characters he makes himself such as and . He also used to host a podcast, , with his friend Mirell Cohen before the two ended the project in 2017.
In his personal life, Elijah married his longtime partner, Samantha Ladenheim, on June 30, 2024, in Tuscany, Italy. The couple enjoy traveling together, and have visited destinations including and .
Nathaneal Spader, 16
Nathaneal Spader was born in August 2008 to Spader and his partner, Leslie Stefanson. The Lincoln actor reflected on welcoming his third child at nearly 50 years old in a 2012 interview on , admitting that he didn’t have any hesitation about it and that the only difference this time around was that he was “slower.”
“You do have a different perspective, I’m not sure what it is yet because I’m so subjective but you really do,” he said. “I think also the reasons to take you out of your home or be away from him are different.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Spader shared on that he spent the majority of quarantine with his son.
“My youngest son, my 12-year-old, we’d go out and line up beer cans on the big rock at the far end of the garden and shoot at them with BB guns,” Spader said.
In 2014, Spader told that Nathaneal would be his final child, explaining that he didn’t think there was a need to populate the world more.
“I believe in a negative population growth,” he said. “The other two were with another mother, so we have three boys that will replace all three of us.”
Nathaneal doesn’t publicly use social media but has often been seen out in public with his father over the years.
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