Dating is tough. Heck, just meeting potential dates is freaking difficult, so actually going out with them can be a nightmare. First, where do you go? A bar? A club? A coffee shop? Church? Do you ask friends to set you up, or do you try dating online? If the latter, then which site? There are literally thousands to choose from.
The entire process is enough to make your head spin. Now imagine being a celebrity and having pretty much all of these dating routes blocked on account of your celebrity status. Celebrities can’t exactly jump on Tinder, or stroll down to their local cafe to pick up a date. (Well, they could, but it wouldn’t be a wise decision.)
This is why so many of them end up dating other celebrities, and why so many couples are brought together on the sets of movies. After all, filming principle photography on a major motion picture can take months so it’s only natural for co-stars to develop feelings for each other.
Unfortunately, not all of these celebrities are single when these feelings develop, which is precisely why for every relationship formed on the set of a movie, another is ruined completely.
With that said, here are the 8 Celebrity Couples Brought Together On Movie Sets (And 7 Hurt By Them).
Brought together: Jennifer Lopez and ben affleck
Hey, do you remember Gigli? No? Well, lucky you. Gigli is a “romantic comedy” that premiered in 2003 and was deemed by critics and audiences as neither romantic or comedic. Simply put, it was bad.
The movie earned a downright awful 6% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes (though the audience score was slightly better at 12%) and bombed at the box office, earning just $7.2 million worldwide on a $54 million budget.
The movie wasn’t all doom and gloom though, for stars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, at least. They likely received good pay for their roles and got a relationship out of it as well.
The two developed chemistry on set (which was, miraculously, missing from the film itself) and, thus, Bennifer was born.
The couple began dating in July 2002 and got engaged in November of that year.
Unfortunately, the relationship ended just 18 months later in January 2004, but more on that later.
Hurt: ryan reynolds and scarlett johansson
Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson each had high-profile relationships before their own romance blossomed.
Reynolds started dating singer Alanis Morissette in 2002, and the two were engaged in 2004 before breaking up in 2007. (The singer says her album Flavors of Entanglement was created out of grief from the breakup, and says the song “Torch” is about Reynolds specifically.)
Johansson, meanwhile, dated Josh Hartnett from 2004 to 2006.
The future Deadpool and Black Widow began dating in 2007, got engaged in May 2008, and were married in a quiet ceremony just four months later.
Unfortunately, the marriage didn’t last. The two separated in December 2010 and officially divorced in July 2011.
So what movie was Reynolds working on that drove a wedge between the two stars? None other than 2011’s Green Lantern, which he shot from March to August in 2010 alongside co-star Blake Lively.
Brought together: ryan reynolds and blake lively
Whenever a door closes, a new one opens, and that’s exactly what happened for Ryan Reynolds when his relationship with Scarlett Johansson ended and he almost immediately entered a new one with Green Lantern co-star Blake Lively.
The two met on set in 2010 and officially became an item in October 2011.
While Reynolds had previously been romantically linked to the aforementioned Alanis Morissette and Scarlett Johansson, Lively had a few high-profile relationships of her own.
She dated Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley in 2008, went on a few dates with Ryan Gosling in 2010, and had a brief fling with Leonardo diCaprio in 2011.
Third engagement has thus far been the charm for Reynolds as he and Lively tied the knot on September 9, 2012. The couple has two young daughters, James (born in 2014) and Ines (born in 2016), and seem to be going strong
Hurt: kenneth branagh and emma thompson
Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson have each had long careers in movie that date all the way back to the 1980s. The two met on the set of the television series Fortunes of War in 1987 and were married in 1989.
They would go on to work together on a number of projects including Henry V, Dead Again, Peter’s Friends, and Much Ado About Nothing, each of which was directed by Branagh and starred Thompson.
Unfortunately, Branagh’s next project was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which did not feature Thompson.
Instead, Branagh worked closely with Helena Bonham Carter and the two had an affair. Thompson and Branagh divorced in 1995 and Branagh continued dating Bonham Carter until 1999.
Thompson has since stated that she holds no ill will toward Bonham Carter, saying the two of them “made our peace years and years ago,” and even going so far as to call her a “wonderful woman.”
Brought together: ryan gosling and eva mendes
Eva Mendes has managed to keep her personal life (and especially her relationships) relatively quiet ever since bursting onto the movie scene with a few hits in the early 2000s.
She dated movie producer George Augusto from 2002-2011, and was rumored to have had a brief fling with Jason Sudeikis some time after that… and that’s about it.
Ryan Gosling, however, has had quite a few relationships during his time in the spotlight (and a few that blossomed on the sets of his movies).
His exes include Sandra Bullock (whom he met on the set of Murder by Numbers), Famke Janssen, Rachel McAdams (his co-star in The Notebook), Kat Dennings, Blake Lively, and Olivia Wilde.
It was Mendes who stole his heart, though, after they met on the set of 2012’s The Place Beyond the Pines.
The couple has two daughters: Esmeralda Amada and Amada Lee, born in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
Hurt: chad michael murray and sophia bush
Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush first met on the set of the WB/CW hit One Tree Hill back in 2003.
Their on-screen romance as Lucas Scott and Brooke Davis soon turned into the real thing behind the scenes as well. The two were engaged in May 2004 and married the following April.
Unfortunately, the couple was doomed by the 2005 movie House of Wax, which starred Murray and a certain billionaire heiress by the name of Paris Hilton.
Rumors of Murray’s infidelity with Hilton quickly began to swirl, unraveling his marriage in the process.
Murray and Bush separated in September 2005, after just five months of marriage. Bush filed for an annulment to the marriage in February 2006, citing fraud, but it was denied by a judge. The two were officially divorced in December later that year.
Brought together: channing tatum and jenna dewan
Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan’s acting careers started out in similar fashion, with small roles in the 2000s before breakthrough performances in 2006’s Step Up put them on the map.
Dewan’s on-screen debut came in 2002’s The Hot Chick, while Tatum first appeared on screen in 2005’s Coach Carter.
The two were cast opposite each other in Step Up and immediately began dating after the movie wrapped.
They were engaged in September 2008, and married in July 2009. They’re daughter, Everly Elizabeth Maiselle Tatum, was born in 2013.
They’re careers following Step Up have taken quite different trajectories. While Dewan has built up a respectable filmography in the years since (including roles in American Horror Story and Supergirl), Tatum has gone on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest leading men, starring in the 21 Jump Street, G.I. Joe, and Magic Mike franchises.
The couple is still married today.
Hurt: jennifer lopez and ben affleck
Oh, Bennifer. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were one of Hollywood’s hottest couples while they were together.
They starred in the aforementioned (and awful) Gigli, he appeared in the music video for her song “Jenny from the Block”, and they were a staple on celebrity magazine covers at the time.
Unfortunately for Lopez, Affleck was cast to play Matt Murdock in the 2003 movie Daredevil opposite Jennifer Garner’s Elektra Natchios, and the rest is history.
The first signs of trouble occurred in September 2003 when Lopez and Affleck postponed their wedding. By January 2004, Bennifer was no more and Bennifer 2.0 was born.
Lopez has had quite the relationship history since breaking up with Affleck. She married singer Marc Anthony in 2004 and the two were together ten years before divorcing in 2014. She has since started a relationship with Alex Rodriguez.
Brought together: jennifer garner and ben affleck
While it’s widely believed that the chemistry that developed between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner is what led to the end of Affleck’s relationship with Jennifer Lopez, Daredevil was not the movie that officially brought Bennifer 2.0 together. That movie was actually 2005’s Elektra.
Affleck and Garner most definitely grew close while filming Daredevil, but did not immediately become a couple.
Instead, Garner began dating her Alias co-star Michael Vartan. The two began dating in mid-2003, but called it a quits the following year, right around the time Garner and Affleck were filming his cameo in Elektra.
The two were married in a small ceremony in June of 2005 and have two daughters and one son. Unfortunately, the couple started having trouble in 2015 and officially divorced in 2017.
The two have an amicable relationship and currently share custody of their children.
Hurt: rachel weisz and darren aronofsky
Rachel Weisz and Darren Aronofsky have been quite successful in Hollywood over the last two decades.
Following a few small roles in the mid-1990’s, Weisz’s breakout performance came in the massively successful Mummy franchise, which she was wise enough to exit before the awful third entry.
Aronofsky, meanwhile, rose to prominence following 2000’s Requiem for a Dream.
In 2001, the two met backstage at London’s Almeida Theater while Weisz was starring in The Shape of Things, and soon began dating.
They moved in together the following year and were engaged in 2005.
Unfortunately, the couple split in 2010 while Weisz was filming Dream House and fell for her co-star.
Aronofsky began dating actress Jennifer Lawrence (whom he met on the set of mother!) in September 2016, but the pair split in November the following year.
Brought together: rachel weisz and daniel craig
Believe it or not, Daniel Craig had a successful movie career long before he was cast as James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, which lead to him becoming a bonafide star to audiences across the world.
He made his on-screen debut in 1992’s The Power of One, then followed that up with notable performances in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Road to Perdition, and Layer Cake.
Weisz and Craig had been friends for years before they starred opposite each other in 2011’s Dream House.
They’re relationship on-screen turned into the real thing when they started dating in December 2010.
The two were married in June the following year in a small ceremony that allegedly only had four guests in attendance (including Craig’s 18-year-old daughter and Weisz’s 5-year-old son).
Unlike many of the entries on this list, Weisz and Craig are still together today, and seem to be going strong.
Hurt: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson
When Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were cast opposite each other in Twilight, the world knew it was only a matter of time before the two became a couple in real life.
Heck, with five movies in the franchise, it was practically ordained; and millions of ’tweens across the world rejoiced when the two went public with their relationship.
The movie that spelled the end for K-Patts was 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman, which was directed by Rupert Sanders.
Stewart (who was cast as the lead) had an affair with Sanders (who was married at the time), which was exposed when the two were photographed in some compromising positions. Pattinson ended the relationship once the photos went public. Sanders’ wife also filed for divorce.
Sine the breakup, Pattinson has been linked to singer Tahliah Debrett Barnett (known professionally as KFA twigs) while Stewart has most recently been dating Victoria’s Secret model Stella Maxwell.
Brought together: jennifer aniston and justin thoreaux
Jennifer Aniston has been in the Hollywood spotlight since as far back as 1993 when she was cast as the lead in the low-budget horror movie Leprechaun. The following year she earned the role of Rachel Green in the television series Friends and the rest is history.
After the series ended, Aniston starred in a few big budget movies and eventually landed a role in the 2012 comedy Wanderlust alongside Justin Theroux.
Aniston and Theroux had actually met in 2007 on the set of Tropic Thunder, but it was during their time on the set of Wanderlust that feelings developed.
The pair started dating in May 2011, bought a home together in January 2012, and were engaged three months later.
The two were married in August of 2015, but separated earlier this year, bringing their seven-year relationship to an end.
Hurt: Jennifer Aniston and Brad pitt
Long before she met Justin Theroux, Jennifer Aniston was one-half of one of Hollywood’s most beloved couples alongside fellow A-lister Brad Pitt.
The pair met and immediately began dating in 1998. By 2000, they were married and the world watched closely to see whether or not the two could make it work.
They were happily married for five years until Pitt was cast opposite Angelina Jolie in 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Long hours on set led to chemistry between the two and Pitt has since admitted he “fell in love” with Jolie while still married to Aniston. Aniston and Pitt separated in January of 2005 and were officially divorced nine months later.
While Aniston would go on to have a relationship with the aforementioned Theroux, Pitt and Aniston would eventually marry in 2012 before ultimately divorcing in 2016.
Now, the world waits with baited breath to see if Aniston and Pitt give their relationship one more shot.
Brought together: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have one of the sweetest stories to come out of Hollywood in a long time. The two first met on the set of 1992’s Jamon Jamon, a Spanish comedy/drama that also happened to be Cruz’s first film role. The pair became friends, but nothing more.
Little is known about Bardem’s relationships over the next fifteen years, but Cruz was in a rather public relationship with Tom Cruise whom she met on the set of Vanilla Sky.
Cruz dated Cruise for three years before breaking up with him in 2004 (allegedly because of his close ties to the church of Scientology).
Bardem re-entered the picture in 2007 when he and Cruz both appeared in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The two began dating that same year and were married in 2010.
Meeting on one set in 1992 and then falling in love on another 15 years later will be a pretty sweet story to tell their kids some day.
Do you know any other Hollywood couples whose relationships were brought together or torn apart on movie sets? Let us know in the comments!
