There are many Hollywood couples who fell in love on set, having taken their on-screen chemistry and translated it into their lives off-screen together. Some of the biggest names in the business met on film or television sets and are still together to this day, with even more having since separated. This just makes the projects they met and fell in love on all the more special as viewers can almost see where the actors turned from co-stars into lovers, their chemistry palpable and strong. In some cases, the relationships could even increase the project’s popularity, as viewers want to bear witness to the start of an off-screen love story.When actors are working closely together for long periods of time, especially when playing love interests, it's easy to understand how they fall in love. There are even many co-stars who viewers have speculated as being together off-screen, whether they are or not, because of the pair's believable chemistry, with viewers even shipping them or having a hard time believing they never fell in love. For some, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction, and the lines become even blurrier when couples fall in love while making a project. Here are 10 famous couples that fell in love while working together on set.
10 Ryan Reynolds & Blake Lively (Green Lantern)
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively have become one of the most beloved Hollywood couples since they first met and fell in love in 2010 while filming Green Lantern. Though Green Lantern was a box-office bomb that drew negative reviews from an overwhelming majority of critics and the planned Green Lantern 2 never happened, it led to Lively and Reynolds's current relationship. They married in 2012, have three daughters, and welcomed a fourth child earlier this year.
Lively and Reynold haven’t acted in a film together since Green Lantern, but frequently appear on red carpets together, and though they maintain privacy with their children, they speak of each other often in interviews and on social media. Fans have come to love their sense of humor, shown through their sarcastic birthday posts, as well as their gushing praise of each other. Despite Green Lantern missing the mark, it will always be remembered as the film that brought Lively and Reynolds together.
9 Eva Mendes & Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond The Pines)
Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have notoriously been a very private couple since they met and fell in love on The Place Beyond The Pines in 2011. They played lovers in the crime drama, and the chemistry turned into romance off-screen. They have two daughters together, and in 2014, Mendes starred in Gosling’s directorial feature film debut, Lost River. The couple secretly married, though it’s not clear when, as Mendes said on the Kyle and Jackie O Show that she likes to “keep it all mysterious,” calling herself a “mysterious woman.”
Still, they will occasionally address their relationship in interviews, and Gosling’s 2017 Golden Globes speech dedicated to "[his] woman" and her late brother could easily bring tears to viewers’ eyes. Mendes has recently shown her support for the Barbie movie and her husband after Gosling was criticized for being too old to play Ken, posting pictures on Instagram wearing a Ryan Gosling Barbie shirt. Mendes and Reynolds may be private in real life, but viewers can always look back at their chemistry on The Place Beyond The Pines.
8 Jennifer Lopez & Ben Affleck (Gigli)
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have a complicated relationship timeline, but it all began in 2002 on the set of the major box-office failure Gigli. Though critics claimed the pairing didn’t have much chemistry in the romantic comedy crime film, that clearly wasn’t the case behind the scenes. They were dubbed “Bennifer” and it wasn’t long before they were engaged, though their planned September 2003 wedding was canceled, and they officially announced their breakup a few months later.
In 2021, Affleck and J-Lo reconnected and married in 2022, two decades after they first fell in love on the set of Gigli. Though Affleck is still making box-office bombs, Bennifer is one of the most famous couples today, and their story of reuniting and getting a second chance has captured many hearts. Like Reynolds and Lively, they prove that great things can come out of some pretty awful films and that sometimes it’s the on-set experiences that make the failures worth it.
7 Daniel Craig & Rachel Weisz (Dream House)
Like the next few couples on this list, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz fell in love on set, but not on their first job with each other. Craig and Weisz first worked together in 1994 doing the play Les Grandes Horizontales in London, but it wasn’t until they worked together again in 2010, starring in the psychological thriller, Dream House, that they fell in love. By the time the panned film hit theaters in September 2011, the James Bond and The Mummy stars had already gotten married privately, and in 2018, they had their first child together, each having one child from previous relationships.
Related: Every Daniel Craig Bond Movie, Ranked (According To Rotten Tomatoes)
A few years after Craig and Weisz fell in love and were married, they returned to perform onstage together, just like how they first met, this time on Broadway in the 2013 revival of Betrayal. They played a married couple in the play, but Weisz’s character was having an affair, hence the play's title. Fortunately, they appear much happier in real life, with Weisz speaking about her marriage to Craig and the play in a hilarious appearance on The Graham Norton Show.
6 Kurt Russell & Goldie Hawn (Swing Shift)
After about 40 years together, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn have become one of Hollywood’s most adored couples, with their romantic relationship having started on the set of Swing Shift. They first met in 1966 while filming The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, but it wasn’t until Russell’s audition for Swing Shift that they reunited and began to date. Together, they have one son, Wyatt Russell, though Kurt is a proud stepfather to fellow actors Kate and Oliver Hudson, and has one other son from his first marriage. Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have made multiple movies together since Swing Shift and are still going strong today.
5 Javier Bardem & Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are now a certified it-couple, but while they fell in love on the set of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, it also wasn’t the first time that the duo had met and worked together. They first met in 1992 filming Cruz’s feature film debut Jamón, Jamón, but Cruz was only 16 and Bardem was 23, so it’s no surprise that it took another 15 years for their relationship to turn romantic. The Spanish actors married in 2010, three years after falling in love on the set of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and have two children together.
A decade after Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cruz and Bardem worked together again on 2017’s Loving Pablo and 2018’s Everybody Knows. Hopefully, viewers won’t have to wait another 10 years to see the couple on-screen again, and it seems the actors don’t want to wait either, Cruz saying she’d love to do a musical with Bardem after seeing him sing as Desi Arnaz in Being The Ricardos. The biopic earned Bardem an Academy Award nomination, making history alongside Cruz who was nominated for Parallel Mothers.
4 Alicia Vikander & Michael Fassbender (The Light Between Oceans)
Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender first met and fell in love while playing a married couple in The Light Between Oceans in 2014 and have enjoyed a nice, private relationship since. In 2018, while promoting Tomb Raider, Vikander confirmed she and Fassbender had secretly married the year before. She told Vogue that his openness to collaborating with her while filming The Light Between Oceans was part of what made her fall in love with him. In 2021, they had their first child, a son.
3 Kit Harrington & Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones)
Kit Harrington’s role as Jon Snow on Game of Thrones launched him into stardom, but it also introduced him to his wife, Rose Leslie. Leslie first began appearing on Game of Thrones season 2 in 2012 as Ygritte in a recurring role before getting promoted to a main role for seasons 3 and 4. They played lovers in the hit HBO series and Harrington told Vogue Italia that “if you’re already attracted to someone, and then they play your love interest in the show, it becomes very easy to fall in love.” Leslie and Harrington married in 2018 and have a son with another child on the way.
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2 Justin Long & Kate Bosworth (House of Darkness)
Justin Long and Kate Bosworth’s love story has unfolded quickly since they first worked together on House of Darkness in 2021, a reimagining of Dracula. In 2023, after a short engagement, the couple had an impromptu, casual wedding in New York City. They may be one of Hollywood’s newest power couples, but their heartfelt Instagram captions to and about each other made them a quick fan-favorite. House of Darkness wasn’t nearly as big of a hit for Long as Barbarian was in the same year, but it is certainly a special one for him and Bosworth.
1 Ginnifer Goodwin & Josh Dallas (Once Upon A Time)
Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas fell in love in 2011 while playing Snow White and Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time. Three years later, they were married and now have two children. Their chemistry was showcased on the ABC series for six seasons, and Goodwin’s first pregnancy was even written into the show, with Snow and Charming welcoming their son Neal in season 3. The couple hasn’t acted together since Once Upon a Time, but with Manifest season 4’s ending also marking the end of the series, it frees Dallas up to potentially make another project alongside his wife.
