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What happens behind the scenes of our favourite television shows and movies can be almost as dramatic as what goes on in front of the screen. But good acting means the audience never knows.
In fact, the acting can be so stellar and the chemistry (whether love or the opposite) so electric, on-screen couples, the object of a character’s affection or best friends on shows and movies are often thought to be in love or the best of friends in real life.
Sure, there are couples who have met and fallen in love on set — Rose Leslie and Kit Harington are one such example, the couple tied the knot in 2018 after meeting on the set of HBO’s iconic show; Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are another, meeting on the set of 2011 superhero flick and marrying in 2012 — but it turns out there are a number of actors who can’t stand the sight of their on-screen love interest once the cameras stop rolling.
The same goes for on-screen buddies, sometimes, like in the case of Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City, even though they played best friends in the show, in real life, the opposite was true.
A recent admission by Vampire Diaries’ alumni Nina Dobrev (who played Elena Gilbert on the show) about her feelings towards her on-screen love interest, Stefan Salvatore, played by Paul Wesley, reminded us of this very fact. The relationships we see, believe in and are invested in on shows and movies are just the actors, acting.
Read on for Hollywood’s most surprising on-set feuds and friends, including actors who played rivals on the screen but stan each other in real life.
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Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley, Vampire DiariesFor many seasons of the popular CW show, the plot centred around the relationship between Nina Dobrev’s character, Elena Gilbert, and Paul Wesley’s character, Stefan Salvatore. Theirs was a love for the history books, with so much on-screen chemistry between the actors, E! News reports Dobrev told podcast , everyone thought they were a real-life couple. “I remember everyone would walk up to me after the show aired and they’d be like, ‘Are you and Paul dating in real life?’”
The 30-year-old actress admitted on the podcast that in fact the opposite was true. “We despised each other so much, that it read as love. We really just didn’t get along the first maybe five months of shooting.”
However, as fans of both Dobrev and Wesley will know these feelings have since turned to friendship, with both Dobrev and Wesley often posting snaps to Instagram hanging out together. The actress confirmed this saying they’re “really good friends” now and “hang out a lot”.
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Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, The Notebook
The Notebook is, without doubt, one of the most beloved romantic movies of all time. The 2004 film adaptation of the 1996 novel by Nicholas Sparks starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling as lovestruck couple Allie and Noah never fails to squeeze hard on the heart strings and bring a tear to the eye no matter how many times we’ve watched it (who’s counting anyway?).
With the level of chemistry between these two actors, it seemed impossible not to imagine that they were, in fact, madly in love in real life as well as on the screen. And while they did end up dating for a few years after meeting on The Notebook set, it wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, it was reportedly loathing at first sight.
During an interview with VH1 back in 2014, the film’s director, Nick Cassavetes, revealed that the co-stars dislike of each other was so strong Gosling asked to have McAdams replaced. “They were really not getting along one day on set,” Cassavetes said, “And he’s [Ryan] doing a scene with Rachel and he says [to me], ‘Would you take her [Rachel] out of here and bring in another actress to read off camera with me? I can’t. I can’t do it with her. I’m just not getting anything from this.’”
Cassavetes said he took Gosling, McAdams and a producer into a room, he came out and left the three of them in there, the two had it out, “screaming and yelling at each other,” but then they came out and said “All right let’s do this.” And the rest is history.
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Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, Romeo + Juliet
The jury is out on whether these star-crossed lovers actually disliked each other while filming Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 take on the Shakespeare classic. There were rumours Danes found DiCaprio “immature” and the actors avoided each other as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. But, in 2018 Danes gave an interview and when asked what it was like working with DiCaprio she said she had to consciously make an effort not to have a crush on him. “I couldn’t really have a crush on the guy I was professionally having a crush on!”
So, whether Danes found DiCaprio immature or was staying way to avoid crushing on her co-star, it’s impossible to know.
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Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, Twilight
Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan) may have found love, for a time, with her co-star and love interest Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen) on the set of the Twilight films but that’s not the only relationship that blossomed on the set. Kristen Stewart’s character, Bella, and Dakota Fanning’s character (Jane) were bitter enemies in the films, but in real life? The best of friends.
The actresses met on the set of the blockbuster fantasy franchise and went on to star together in The Runaways as well become brilliant friends. “I can honestly say that my friendship with Kristen [Stewart] is one of the most special bonds in my life. She has held my hair back as I told her (of) heartbreak, she has always been there for me when I have needed her most,” Fanning reportedly said at a 2016 event in Hollywood. Stewart reportedly echoed her feelings, telling Fanning at the event “I love you so much.”
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Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth, Beverly Hills, 90210
Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth played best friends, Brenda and Kelly respectively, who were also sometimes rivals on the original series about teens growing up in one of the most famous post codes on the planet.
Doherty left the show in 1994 after the fourth season amidst a swirl of rumours that she had had some tricky on-set relationships with the other cast members, particularly Garth.
In an interview in 2015 fellow cast member and Brenda and Kelly’s other best friend, Tori Spelling (Donna), confirmed that Garth and Doherty were not, in fact, the best of friends and that in one instance the male cast members broke up a “fistfight” between the two actresses. In the interview Spelling also reportedly said she asked her father, Aaron Spelling, the show’s producer, to axe Doherty from the cast.
But, this story has a happy ending. In the intervening years it appears Garth and Doherty (and Spelling) have become friends, with the three back on board and working together on the upcoming reboot of .
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Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey
Playing madly-in-love kinky couple Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades film trilogy based on the best-selling books is rumoured to have been a stretch for these two actors.
Rumours swirled around each movie in the franchise that the lack of on-screen chemistry which many fans commented on, was a result of the actors not being very keen on each other even as friends. Neither actor has confirmed these rumours.
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Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City
Sex and the City was at its core about four best friends navigating life in New York City. The friendship between the four fabulous characters, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Cynthia (Miranda), was so key and inspiring, in its heyday in the late ‘90s, early ‘00s, chic bars and brunch spaces were filled with tight knit groups of stylish, strong career women bonding over cosmos and bad dates.
However, it’s been reported that despite all signs pointing to these four women being the best of friends, there was no love lost between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall. The show’s writer and director, Michael Patrick King, shared in an interview on the Origins podcast that their relationship was never great and in some ways it stemmed from Sarah Jessica Parker being the top billed actress, while Cattrall thought she should have top billing or at least equal billing. King said Cattrall claimed her character was “everyone’s favourite.”
Parker has since commented that she is “not in a catfight with anybody” while Cattrall publicly posted on Instagram that Parker is not her “friend”.
