Fans love when their favorite on-screen couples also turn out to be dating in real life. Even though what happens on the small screen (or silver screen) is fiction, people get super attached to the characters and the actors who play them.
It’s exciting to know that the affection we saw on-screen might have created some real feelings once the cameras stopped rolling.
A lot of the biggest names in Hollywood right now met and started their relationships on movie sets. Some beloved on- and off-screen couples have ended their relationships lately, like Jenna Dewan-Tatum and Channing Tatum, but others have been going strong now for decades.
Romantic love isn’t the only thing that can blossom on the job, though. We love talking about people who fell in love on set, but sometimes even better stories come from people who are best friends behind the scenes.
Hollywood is home to a lot of strong friendships that have had to weather career challenges, tabloid rumors, and all of the other ups and downs that come with living a life in the public eye. You know you’ve got a friend for life if you can make it through all of that.
So which A-Listers are actually dating in real life, and which ones are just really fantastic friends? We’ve got a catch-all list for you right here.
Read on to learn the 9 A-Listers Who Are Dating In Real Life (And 9 Who Are Just Best Friends).
Dating IRL: Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas
If you had to pick a pair of celebrities at random who you thought were dating secretly, you’d probably pick a pair of co-stars – or at the very least, people who had been spotted together often.
It’s not uncommon for the co-stars of a movie or television show to end up together. After all, they spend a lot of time in each other’s company, and often form bonds away from the set.
Most people don’t expect celebrities from two opposite ends of show business to end up together.
When Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas announced their engagement last fall, it came as a shock to fans of both celebrities.
Although they’d been dating since the fall of 2016, they’d done a very good job of keeping their relationship private and out of the public eye.
It also seemed like two worlds colliding. While Turner is best known for playing Sansa on the globally popular Game of Thrones, Jonas is best known for being one-third of the Jonas Brothers.
The two are reportedly super happy. Jonas’ dad says that Turner already feels like part of the family, and last month the couple got matching tattoos.
The only ones who aren’t thrilled about the news are people who want to see Maisie Williams (Arya) and Turner together – but don’t worry, Williams will be a bridesmaid at the wedding.
Best Friends: Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans
Speaking of co-stars who people think are dating, people have been shipping Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson for ages now.
They haven’t just been co-stars of the Avengers movies, though the franchise has definitely helped bring them together often. They’ve been working together on various movies since they were teenagers, long before they were the humongous stars they are today. (Anyone remember The Perfect Score?)
Since Evans announced his split from Jenny Slate and ScarJo finalized her divorce with Romain Dauriac last year, Marvel fans have been hoping that the two would get together.
They’ve even got a ship name – Evansson. The fans are only fueled by how well Evans and Johansson get along.
It’s clear from interviews, press events, and red carpet photos that the two are super close. However, sorry, shippers, they’re not dating – they’re just fantastic friends.
Both actors have nothing but glowing admiration for one another and are known to hang out together when they’re not working.
They’ve even thrown parties together for the crew of the Marvel movies. Maybe their off-screen friendship has helped them create the platonic bonds between Cap and Black Widow on set of the Avengers franchise.
Dating IRL: Kit Harington and Rose Leslie
Since the Jon and Daenerys’ ship took off during the latest season of Game of Thrones, some fans have already forgotten the original woman everyone wanted Jon to marry.
Back in season three of the show, we watched Jon and the wildling Ygritte slowly fall in love. The catch? Jon was still secretly aligned with the Night’s Watch while pretending to be a defector.
This led to a pretty painful encounter when Ygritte literally shot him out of anger – but it wasn’t as painful as her passing in a climactic battle at the Wall.
Fans who are still on the Jon/Ygritte train can rejoice, because Kit Harington and Rose Leslie – the actors who portray both characters – have just as much chemistry in real life.
They started dating after meeting on the show years ago and are now happily engaged. Both actors are intensely private, but you can see how much they care about one another in small moments on red carpets or in interviews.
Leslie has no tolerance for spoilers, though. She’s said that when Harington gets a new script for the last season of Game of Thrones, she kicks him out of the house so that he can’t accidentally spoil it for her. She wants to experience it just like everyone else.
Best Friends: Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Most movie buffs got to know and love both Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt through the 2009 hit film 500 Days of Summer.
However, they first met each other a full decade before the movie was released, on the set of a different movie. They starred in a small indie movie called Manic back in 2001 and have been friends ever since.
Deschanel said that they bonded over a mutual love of for Harry Nilsson and Nina Simone and called him “one of her dearest friends,” saying that she hoped to make another thousand movies with him.
Gordon-Levitt is just as complimentary when he’s asked about Deschanel. They love watching movies together and sharing music recommendations since they share similar tastes.
The two of them also apparently love making music together.
For New Year’s Eve in 2011, they sang a cover of “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” and uploaded it to YouTube for all the rest of us regular people to enjoy. It’s truly the cutest friendship ever.
Since their chemistry on-screen was so great, fans of 500 Days of Summer wanted the pair to date in real life as well. Although they might not be romantically involved, they remain great friends to this day.
Dating IRL: Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively
Ryan Reynolds used to be married to another star on our list. He and Scarlett Johansson were married for a brief moment in time – they started dating in 2007, got hitched in 2008, but were divorced by the end of 2010.
If you follow him on Twitter, though, you know that the ending of that relationship opened the door for his current marriage to Blake Lively.
It’s hard to miss them on social media since they tease each other all the time. Lively was the one who started trolling her husband on Instagram before the release of Deadpool, teasing him about suggestive Deadpool photo shoots and his love for Helen Mirren.
Now they’ve had a back-and-forth war going on for the past few years, cutting each other out of birthday photos and proclaiming their love and admiration for everyone but each other.
Ironically, this just makes it even more obvious how much fun they have together.
When they’re taking a rare moment to be serious, they’re open about how a strong friendship is the basis of their romantic relationship.
They also have two young kids together – Ines and James. We wonder if they’ll grow up with the same sense of humor that their parents have.
Best Friends: Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas
Anyone who watched the Disney channel in 2008 is familiar with how Demi Lovato burst onto the scene. She got her big break in the DCOM Camp Rock, alongside all three of the Jonas Brothers.
Although Joe Jonas played her love interest in the movie (and later dated her for a month), it was Nick Jonas who would later be the subject of a lot of gossip surrounding his relationship status with Lovato.
The two have been very close friends for a decade now, even going on tour together back in 2016. They’ve been very specific that their friendship is purely platonic, which they insist on every time someone asks.
The release of Lovato’s new album last year brought all the rumors roaring back. The song “Ruin the Friendship”, where she sings about ruining a friendship to have something more, seemed to have a lot of allusions to a certain Jonas brother.
Eagle-eyed fans noticed that one line of the song even spells out “Nick/Demi” when you take the first letter of each word.
While this might turn into a romance down the road, right now the stars say that they’re still just friends. Guess the friendship hasn’t been totally ruined yet.
Dating IRL: Emma Roberts and Evan Peters
The relationship between Emma Roberts and Evan Peters has been…rocky, to say the very least. Although they’ve had some nasty breakups over the years, for now, it seems like they’re back together.
Emma Roberts is known for shows like Scream Queens, while Evan Peters is best known for his role as Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse.
Although both of them have had lead roles on American Horror Story, that’s not how they got together. They first met when filming the movie Adult World in 2012.
Some outlets reported that they started dating on set, but Roberts says they didn’t start dating until some time after production ended.
Not long after that, though, the couple made headlines for a domestic violence dispute. Guests at a hotel they were staying at called the police after hearing a fight coming from the hotel room Roberts and Peters were sharing.
Roberts was arrested, but Peters decided not to press charges. They got engaged five months after the fiasco, but then broke up two years later in 2015. They later got back together…then split up again, deleting all social media posts of the two of them.
They’ve reportedly been together without incident since September 2016. We have our fingers crossed for them.
Best Friends: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet
If the co-stars of the romantic drama of the nineties had fallen in love in real life, the tabloids would have had a field day.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet might not be a couple, but they are extremely close friends in real life. They met on the set of Titanic over twenty years ago now.
They’ve stayed friends across the years – Winslet was even there, teary-eyed, when DiCaprio finally won his Oscar.
Winslet knows that people are disappointed that Jack and Rose never got together in real life as so many fans have hoped. In interviews, she’s said that their relationship has never been romantic.
This should be a good thing for fans of them both, though, because it means that there’s never been an opportunity for their close friendship to go up in flames. (Maybe that’s what’s stopping Nick and Demi.)
They even quote lines from the Titanic script to each other every once in awhile just because they can.
DiCaprio has also gushed about their friendship and has even called Winslet the best actress of her generation. Since they met in their early twenties, they’ve grown up in the industry together and have been each other’s support system as they tried to navigate their careers.
They never hesitate to support one another whether they’re on or off-camera. Now that’s friendship.
Dating IRL: Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell
Out of all of the stars on our list, whether best friends or IRL couples, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell probably have the most history together.
They met long before some of the celebrities on this list were even born – in 1968, on the set of The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.
Hawn has said in interviews that she instantly took a liking to Russell, but it didn’t go anywhere – he was only 16, while she was 21. After filming wrapped, they both went their separate ways.
Hawn won an Oscar the very next year, while Russell slowly worked his way up the Hollywood ranks. They both married and divorced other people.
Then, in 1983, they met again at an audition for Swing Shift. They’ve been together ever since. Years after they first met, they starred together once again in the 1987 movie Overboard, where they got to pretend to fall in love all over again.
More recently, they earned their stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame together, and seem to be as wildly in love as ever all these years later.
Whenever the two of them write a relationship advice book, we’re sure that it would be a bestseller.
Best Friends: Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield
Breakups are rough. It can be hard to immediately be friends with someone who you were very close to for years, especially if feelings are stronger on one side than the other.
Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield, though, set the perfect example of how to be supportive friends even after a relationship ends.
The Amazing Spider-Man costars did date for years after meeting to film the movie in 2010. Both were in relationships at the time, but after news broke that the two had independently ended their previous relationships, rumors started to swirl that they were secretly dating.
It took them months to confirm it, but once they did, they were almost annoyingly cute. They were together for roughly four years before reps confirmed that they had split back in 2015.
Since then, there have been rumors of the two of them getting back together, but it seems as though they’re keeping their relationship platonic.
Stone has said that Garfield is still someone she loves very much, and Garfield gave Stone a standing ovation when she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in 2017.
Also, don’t ask Garfield if there’s any competition between the two – he’s adamant that he’s very supportive and Stone’s biggest fan.
Dating IRL: Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes have been in a relationship for more than six years, but they’re so intensely private that there’s a good chance you had no idea.
Gosling seems to be romantically linked to Emma Stone more often than he is to his actual partner in real life. (Thanks, La La Land.)
They met while filming the 2012 movie The Place Beyond The Pines. As the movie was filming and even after production had wrapped, scattered photos of the two of them sharing sweet moments began to surface online.
They keep their relationship so under the radar that people were shocked when Gosling and Mendes announced that they were expecting their first kid together. Their first baby was born in September 2014, and they welcomed their second in April 2016.
In the few interviews where they do speak about one another, they’re so obviously head-over-heels in love that it’s almost sickeningly cute.
Gosling has said that he knows Mendes is the person he’s supposed to be with and famously thanked her for her love and support in his Golden Globes acceptance speech last year.
The most private celebrity couples also seem to last the longest, so we’re hoping the same holds true for Gosling and Mendes.
Best Friends: Aziz Ansari and Jennifer Lawrence
Depending on which story you read back in 2016, you might have heard that Aziz Ansari was rudely “friendzoned” by Jennifer Lawrence.
The two actors are very good friends, but not because Ansari was trying to date JLaw. They really are just good friends. (That doesn’t generate as juicy a headline, though, so friendzoned it was.)
Ansari and Lawrence frequently hang out with Amy Schumer, but they also spend time together one-on-one.
A very lucky photographer snapped a shot of Lawrence giving Ansari a piggyback ride to his car after an SNL afterparty, and they’ve been spotted together in dive bars eating nachos and living their best lives. We can’t say we blame them.
Master of None and Parks and Recreation star Ansari has called Lawrence “hilarious and charming” and has spoken about their friendship in interviews.
The funniest moment he’s shared, though, was probably when he admitted to being high while watching a documentary that Lawrence had narrated. It’s got to be weird being out of your mind and then hearing your friend’s disembodied voice coming from the TV.
We can only hope that this friendship gifts us with an amazing buddy comedy movie in the near future. Please?
Dating IRL: Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard
America has a love affair with cute couples. They make it easy for us to not only want to be them, but also to want to be best friends with them. Social media has only made our creeping easier.
When it comes to cute couples in Hollywood, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are definitely at the top of the list.
They met at a friend’s party in 2007, and to hear them tell it, sparks didn’t exactly immediately fly. It might have something to do with the fact that the two of them are complete opposites. (You know what they say…)
Shepard was known for joke shows like Punk’d and was struggling with substance abuse, while Bell is the epitome of a good Catholic girl who follows all the rules. The second time they met, however, something changed.
They got engaged in late 2009, but decided not go actually tie the knot until same-sex marriage was legal in California.
They got married in the most low-key ceremony ever in October 2013 – so low-key that it was at a courthouse and cost less than $200.
They have two young kids together and are as cute as ever in 2018.
Best Friends: Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes
If you’re a fan of pop music, it’s been pretty impossible to avoid mention of either Shawn Mendes or Camila Cabello.
Mendes’ latest single has been topping the charts lately, while Cabello’s first solo album went straight to number one earlier this year. (Not to mention how long everyone spent singing Havana ooh na na under their breaths last year. Yep, that song’s hers.)
What you might not know, however, is that the two are very close friends.
They first met back in 2015, when Cabello’s career with Fifth Harmony was just starting to take off. Later that year, they released a song together, “I Know What You Did Last Summer”.
While they haven’t released music together since then, they’re still very close friends. Mendes has called Cabello his “favorite person in the whole world” and has nothing but kind words to say about her music.
Cabello also recently shared a photo collage of the two of them on her Instagram after Mendes came to her show in Toronto.
“Shawmila” fans are dying to see the two of them date, and the shippers only gain strength every time a kind word is shared.
Don’t believe the rumors, though– Cabello and Mendes are just “real friends.”
Dating IRL: Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth
Yes, they are dating again, in case you didn’t know.
We’ve been here before, in the days before Miley ditched her Hannah Montana Disney image and announced that she was a woman by twerking on Robin Thicke.
The Disney star met Liam Hemsworth (who you probably know as Gale from The Hunger Games) on the set of her 2010 movie The Last Song, one of her last acting gigs before refocusing her attention on her music career.
Not only did they date on and off for a few years, but they announced their engagement in 2012… before their relationship famously went up in flames in 2013.
Although we did get the song “Wrecking Ball” out of the whole fiasco.
After some time for both to rediscover themselves and what they wanted from relationships, they rekindled their relationship in 2016.
Cyrus officially announced that they were engaged again on Ellen in October 2016. Tabloids have been trying to dig up any proof that they got secretly married away from the public eye, but they haven’t had any luck yet.
Chris Hemsworth has gone on the record to say that they’re not married, but that Cyrus does feel like a member of their family either way.
Best Friends: Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd
Like DiCaprio and Winslet, Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd go way back. They’ve been friends since they met as wannabe actors in L.A. (Imagine what it must be like for you and your friend to independently become globally famous.)
Later, they starred together for the first time in the 1998 movie The Object of My Affection. They’ve worked together a few times since then.
Rudd joined the cast of Friends as a minor character in 2002, but their biggest reunion was for the 2012 movie Wanderlust.
Aniston spoke about her friendship with Rudd when she was on the press tour for the movie. She credits him for being one of the reasons filming the movie was so much fun since he’s a “dear friend” who she loves.
We can imagine that it definitely helps your comedic timing when you already have a natural rapport with your costar.
Some people have taken her comments to mean that there’s something else going on between her and Rudd, but don’t hold your breath on that one.
Rudd has been happily married with two kids since 2003, and he and Aniston are just fine being pals.
Dating IRL: Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez
People make couple nicknames all the time, but what nickname do you give two people who already have famous nicknames? We don’t have a couple name for JLo and A-Rod, but we do know that they’re one of the biggest couples in Hollywood.
Jennifer Lopez, of course, is one of the biggest stars on the planet, known for her equally successful acting and music careers.
Alex Rodriguez, on the other hand, is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. They make for one heck of a power couple.
They first met at a Yankees game in 2005, when Lopez was still with her now ex-husband Marc Anthony. Little did either of them know that years later, they’d be in a committed relationship and discussing their blended family.
Both of them have children from their previous relationships who seem to be adjusting well to their parents’ new high-profile relationship.
Lopez’ new song “El Anillo” set off a frenzy of speculation that the two might be ringing wedding bells sometime soon since the song is so clearly about their relationship.
Lopez says she’s in no rush to walk down the aisle again, though, and they seem to be happy with their relationship just the way it is.
Best Friends: Zendaya and Tom Holland
Before joining the Spider-Man: Homecoming cast, Zendaya was already a star in her own right. She had a successful career on Disney Channel first on Shake It Up and later as the star of K.C. Undercover.
The Spider-Man movie was her movie breakthrough, though, along with fellow breakout star Tom Holland.
In Homecoming, Zendaya plays “MJ,” Peter Parker’s loner classmate who always seems to be watching from the sidelines. By the end of the movie, they end up as friends, though the movie hints that it could potentially become something more in sequels.
While filming the movie, Holland and Zendaya became great friends in real life as well.
They frequently feature on each other’s social media profiles since they make a point to hang out, even though Holland is based in the U.K. and Zendaya is from the U.S.
Fans of both actors are convinced that the two are secretly dating because their chemistry on and off-screen is so great, even going so far as to dedicate entire blogs and Twitter accounts to detailing every interaction between the two.
Both Holland and Zendaya maintain that they are fantastic friends, but not in a romantic relationship– and honestly, can’t two people of opposite genders just be best friends?
Were you surprised by any of the couples on our list? What are your favorite celebrity best friend pairs? Let us know in the comments!
