13 Co-Stars Who Dated (Some More Successfully Than Others!)

Since the golden age of Hollywood, actors have been starting romances on set—often while playing onscreen lovers—then gumming up the works with their inevitable breakups. Recall Elizabeth Taylor's affair with co-star Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra in 1962. At the time, she was married to fellow actor Eddie Fisher, whom she more or less stole from Debbie Reynolds. Ten days after her divorce from Fisher, Taylor married Burton—for the first time.

Related: Elizabeth Taylor Through the Years

Of course, sometimes these crazy kids make it work. On the other end of the spectrum, one of the most legendary Hollywood couples, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, met while filming 1944’s To Have and Have Not. Bogart was married to his third wife, Mayo Methot, at the time, but sparks flew with Bacall and they quickly began an affair. Three months after divorcing Methot, Bogart married Bacall, and their relationship lasted until his 1957 death from esophageal cancer.

Related: Lauren Bacall Through the Years

Read on for a list of modern-day co-stars who've famously mixed business with pleasure.

After meeting on the set of the beloved teen drama The O.C. — where they played high-school sweethearts Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts — Brody and Bilson developed real feelings for one another and dated from 2003 to 2006.

After The O.C. ended, Blake Lively and Penn Badgley became the next real-life couple to come out of a Josh Schwartz teen drama. They met while playing star-crossed lovers Dan Humphrey and Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, dating from 2007 to 2010. They too had to work together after the breakup, as the series didn’t end until 2012 (and their characters got married as well).

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were the power couple of the early aughts, striking up a romance after playing teen lovers in the much-maligned Twilight Saga. (She was an antisocial human teen, he was a century-old vampire — just go with it.)

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone started dating in 2011 while filming The Amazing Spider-Man, in which Garfield played Peter Parker and Stone played his love interest Gwen Stacy. They kept their romance notoriously private during their four-year relationship, going so far as to hold paper signs over their faces when paparazzi tried to photograph them.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams started dating in 2005 after meeting on the set of the romantic drama The Notebook. Their relationship ended in 2007, but their swoon-worthy acceptance of the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss will live forever.

A match made in Westeros! Rose Leslie and Kit Harington started dating in 2011 after playing fictional lovers Ygritte and Jon Snow on Game of Thrones. Ygritte died in season 4, but their romance survived—they tied the knot in 2018 and later welcomed a son. In February 2023, Harington confirmed that the couple are expecting their second child.

No costar romance list would be complete without J.Lo and Ben, who started dating after meeting in late 2001 on the set of the notorious box-office bomb Gigli. They got engaged after a high-profile courtship that included an Affleck cameo in the “Jenny From the Block” music video, but they called off their planned September 2003 wedding due to “excessive media attention” and split in early 2004.

Riverdale costars Camila Mendes and Charles Melton, who play Veronica Lodge and Reggie Mantle, respectively, dated from October 2018 to December 2019 after meeting on the set of the teen drama. They’re also not the only Riverdale stars who dated after playing lovers on the show: Lili Reinhart (Betty Cooper) and Cole Sprouse (Jughead Jones) dated off and on from 2017 to 2020.

The ultra-private couple started dating after meeting on the set of Changeland in 2017. “I was waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Culkin told Esquire in 2021, explaining his initial hesitance at the beginning of their relationship. He soon got past his fears, realizing, “No—sometimes it’s just good.” Culkin and Song welcomed a son in April 2021, and their second child was born in December 2022.

The Spanish actors first worked together on 1992’s Jamón Jamón, but they didn’t start dating until 2007 after collaborating on Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem later joked that they liked each other the first time they met but weren’t quite ready for a relationship.

Freida Pinto and Dev Patel played love interests in 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, but they didn’t start dating until after production ended, as Pinto was engaged to someone else during filming. After calling it quits with her then-fiancé, Rohan Antao, Pinto and Patel went public with their romance in 2009. They split in 2014 after nearly six years together.

Vincent Kartheiser and Alexis Bledel started dating in 2012 after connecting on the set of Mad Men. Bledel played a woman named Beth Dawes, who had an affair with Kartheiser’s character, Pete Campbell.

Like Gosling and McAdams before them, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth met on the set of a Nicholas Sparks film adaptation (2010’s The Last Song). Their off-and-on relationship began in 2009 and culminated with an October 2018 engagement—their second, as the first one happened in 2012. They tied the knot in December 2018 but announced their separation less than one year later, finalizing their divorce in early 2020.

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