18 Celebrity Romances That Started on Set

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Lee Celano/WireImage

Off the top of your head, how many costars who dated can you name? Ariana Grande and her unexpected romance with Ethan Slater on the set of Wicked had the internet talking last year, and the rumor about Sydney Sweeney and her Anyone But You costar Glen Powell lingered for quite a while. Plus, we all finally received confirmation that The White Lotus’s Meghann Fahy and Leo Woodall are, indeed, together.

Now seemingly more than ever, costar romances are in the air—which makes us think about some of the classic examples. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton fell in love filming Cleopatra. Penélope Cruz is still going strong with Javier Bardem since working together on Vicky Cristina Barcelona, as are Games of Thrones stars Rose Leslie and Kit Harington. Below, take a trip down memory lane as we reminisce about more unforgettable costars who dated, both on and off screen.

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys

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Photo: Getty Images

Set: The Americans (2013)

Relationship duration: The obvious chemistry between Russell and Rhys when they co-starred as married Soviet sleeper agents on The Americans wasn’t only effective acting; the two started dating in 2014 (shortly after Russell’s divorce from her first husband, Brooklyn-based contractor Shane Deary). Russell and Rhys are now co-parents to one son, in addition to Russell’s two children from her first marriage.

Current relationship status: Firmly partnered!

Fun fact: They’ve appeared on Watch What Happens with Andy Cohen together. (Bold for a straight couple!)

Hunter Schafer and Dominic Fike

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Photo: Getty Images

Set: Euphoria (2019)

Relationship duration: This onetime couple met on the set of Euphoria and dated for more than a year before splitting up this past summer. As Schafer later told Alex Cooper on the Call Her Daddy podcast: “It’s one of the cleaner breakups I’ve had. We both recognized that this is not working, and we can’t do this. We got to go our own separate ways. It was so, so hard because we really loved each other. He’s a really special person and I love his soul and everything.”

Current relationship status: Broken up, but cordial.

Fun fact: Infidelity isn’t easy for any couple to navigate, but it’s nice to hear that Schafer still has fond memories of her relationship with Fike.

Ben Platt and Noah Galvin

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Photo: Getty Images

Set: A web series (2013)

Relationship duration: These two newlyweds first met a decade ago, when Galvin invited Platt to guest-star in a web series he was creating, but they didn’t begin dating until January 2020. Not only did the two go on to survive lockdown in Platt’s childhood home together, but they even came out of it engaged.

Current relationship status: Blissfully wed!

Fun fact: The husbands have both played Evan Hansen. One has to wonder if they exchange tips about vocal rest and projection during family dinners.

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer

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Photo: Getty Images

Set: True Blood (2007)

Relationship duration: Paquin and Moyer met in 2007 while auditioning for their roles on HBO’s sexy-vampire series True Blood. The two kept their romance a secret for the first few years, eventually getting married in 2010 and welcoming fraternal twins in 2012.

Current relationship status: Still married!

Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Frazer Harrison via Getty Images

Set: Riverdale (2017)

Relationship duration: The on-screen love interests began an on-again, off-again relationship in 2017 that officially ended in March of 2020. “What an incredible experience I had, I’ll always feel lucky and cherish that I had the chance to fall in love,” Spouse wrote in his Instagram break-up announcement.

Current relationship status: On a 2023 episode of Call Her Daddy, Sprouse said that he and Reinhart remain “good friends.” On the romantic front, Sprouse has been dating model Ari Fournier for almost four years, while Reinhart has been linked to actor Jack Martin.

Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Noel Vasquez via Getty Images

Set: High School Musical (2006)

Relationship duration: The Disney couple started dating in 2005 and broke up five years later, in December 2010.

Current relationship status: After some 13 years of radio silence, in April 2023 Efron broke the internet by following his ex-girlfriend on Instagram. In December of that year, however, Hudgens married her boyfriend of several years—professional baseball player Cole Tucker—in Tulum.

Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Set: One Tree Hill (2003-2012)

The proposal: Spring 2004

The marriage: April 2005

The breakup: September 2005

The divorce: December 2006

Current relationship status: The former costars, who played high school sweethearts Brooke and Lucas, don’t appear to be in touch much anymore. While Murray went on to marry actress Sarah Roemer in 2015, Bush was briefly married to entrepeneur Grant Hughes before beginning a relationship with former professional soccer player Ashlyn Harris in 2023.

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Set: The Last Song (2010)

The proposal: May 31, 2012

The breakup: The celebrity couple announced that they had called off their engagement a year later, in September 2013. “I don’t think I realized what 19 truly is, and I got engaged at 19, and I definitely wouldn’t change being engaged. It was so fun wearing a fat rock for a few years,” Cyrus told Barbara Walters in December 2013, referring to her 3.5-carat Neil Lane diamond ring. “But now, I just feel like I can actually be happy.”

The second engagement: Shortly after the two were spotted together at an Australian music festival, Cyrus was seen wearing her engagement ring again in January 2016.

The marriage: December 23, 2018

The divorce: While the couple sadly separated in August 2019, their divorce was only finalized in September 2020.

Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Allen Berezovsky/WireImage

Set: The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017)

Relationship duration: The pair started dating in 2010 before calling it quits in May 2013.

Current relationship status: Post-split, the pair kept things amicable, with Dobrev even hanging out with her ex and his wife, Nikki Reed. More recently, Dobrev became engaged to former professional snowboarder Shaun White.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Kevin Winter via Getty Images

Set: Twilight (2008)

Relationship duration: The couple dated on and off from 2009 to 2013, ultimately parting ways a year after Stewart’s “momentary indiscretion” with Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders.

Current relationship status: The two remain good friends; in fact, Stewart made a surprise appearance at the Batman actor’s 37th birthday last year.

Fun fact: Both are currently engaged: Stewart to screenwriter Dylan Meyer, and Pattinson to Suki Waterhouse, with whom he also has a child.

Blake Lively and Penn Badgley

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Set: Gossip Girl (2007)

Relationship duration: The pair started dating in 2007, breaking up in 2010.

Current relationship status: Friends from afar. Both have stepped gracefully into new chapters of their lives: Lively, now a mother of four, has been married to Ryan Reynolds since 2012. Badgley, meanwhile, wed Domino Kirke in 2017. They share two children. (N.B.: Lively and Reynolds first met in 2010, on the set of Green Lantern, when Reynolds was married to Scarlett Johansson and Lively was dating Badgley. Their romance wasn’t confirmed, however, until the following year.)

Fun fact: The duo managed to keep their breakup under wraps for months, according to Gossip Girl executive producer Joshua Safran.

Rachel Bilson and Adam Brody

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Donato Sardella/WireImage

Set: The O.C. (2003-2007)

Relationship duration: Bilson and Brody, portraying the iconic duo Summer Roberts and Seth Cohen, were a real-life couple for three years until their split in 2006.

Current relationship status: If this impromptu JFK meet-up in 2019 is anything to go by, things between them are good!

Fun fact: Brody has been married to Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester since 2014, and they have two children together.

Alexis Bledel and Vincent Kartheiser

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images

Set: Mad Men (2007-2015)

The proposal: March 2013

The marriage: June 2014

The divorce: August 2022

Current relationship status: The Gilmore Girls and Mad Men actors have a child together.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Getty Images

Set: Gigli (2003)

The proposal: November 2002

The breakup: In September 2003, Lopez called off their wedding, and they issued an official statement about their breakup in January 2004.

The reunion: Seventeen years later! By April 2021, Bennifer was back.

The second engagement: April 8, 2022

The marriage: Bennifer eloped in Las Vegas on July 17, 2022.

The divorce: After two years of marriage, Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck in August 2024—though the two have occasionally been spotted together since.

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Dave J Hogan via Getty Images

Set: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Relationship duration: The pair started dating in 2011 and split in 2015.

Current relationship status: Stone and Garfield have remained friends since their breakup, though Stone ultimately found love on a different set: In 2016, while hosting Saturday Night Live, she met segment director Dave McCary; they would marry in 2020. Stone and McCary went on to welcome their first child, a daughter, in 2021.

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Lee Celano/WireImage

Set: The Notebook (2004)

Relationship duration: A classic enemies-to-lovers story, the Hollywood pair famously disliked each other at first, only to embark on a two-year romance from 2005 to 2007.

Current relationship status: Despite their rocky beginning, there is no bad blood between these two.

Fun fact: Gosling, a repeat offender, is married to Eva Mendes, with whom he co-starred in the 2012 film The Place Beyond the Pines. McAdams has been in a relationship with screenwriter Jamie Linden since 2016; the couple share two chidlren.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: James Devaney/WireImage

Set: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

The engagement: April 2012

The marriage: August 2014

The breakup: September 2016

The divorce: April 12, 2019

Relationship duration: Though Brangelina were only married for five years, they were together for 12.

Current relationship status: Jolie and Pitt co-parent six children—Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Knox Léon, and Vivienne Marcheline—though things between them are contentious.

Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn

Costars Who Dated 18 RealLife Romances Beyond the Screen
Photo: Stephane Cardinale/Corbis via Getty Images

Set: The Break-Up (2006)

Relationship duration: Getting together a little after her divorce from Brad Pitt, Aniston and Vaughn ended things in December 2006, just over a year after they started dating.

Current relationship status: No animosity between these two!