Dawn and Chris O'Dowd

Irish actor Chris O’Dowd is a lifesaver, literally – at least according to his British wife Dawn O’Porter.

The writer/TV personality had moved to Los Angeles to further her successful U.K. career, but things didn’t pan out as planned and she wound up unemployed for more than two years. Then in 2009 she met O’Dowd, a recent Hollywood transplant himself.

“I thank God I met Chris when all that was going on, because if I hadn’t I might have really hit rock bottom,” she told the Daily Mail last week.

“We got together just as Chris’s career was taking off, so we experienced it together. Because it was all happening for him, I still got to live this amazing life.”

O’Porter – her maiden name is Porter, but she added the O’ after her marriage last year – is promoting a new documentary about British teens that will air on TLC in the U.K.

And children, she says, will be part of the future she shares with her Roscommon-born husband.
“Yes, we will at some point in the next three years, but there’s no hurry. I read an interview with Chris where he said he wanted three children, which was news to me,” O’Porter says.

“I think I’ll be strict enough, but a really good friend to my kids. But then what parent doesn’t say that? I might get some real rotters. But Chris’ll be a brilliant dad. Definitely.”