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An on-screen romance can occasionally be little more than two talented performers who manage to evoke intense passion in the audience. Other times, the show ends up igniting a genuine relationship that results in nuptials and the pitter-patter of little feet. Then there are certain TV and movie couplings that had their roots in reality before making the transition to our screens.
One of the first examples of an on-screen relationship being based on a real-life connection in 2023 may be found in ITV's Stonehouse. Matthew Macfadyen portrays the titular character in the drama, which is based on the true story of Labour MP John Stonehouse, who staged his own death in 1974. Keeley Hawes plays Stonehouse's wife, Barbara. The two actors have been married since 2004 and have two children together, as well as Hawes’ son from an earlier relationship.
Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone first became friends in the early 1990s before attending a writing class together at a LA improv theatre in 1998.
Although Falcone and McCarthy had a scene together in a 2003 episode of Gilmore Girls, they first appeared as a couple in the 2011 comedy Bridesmaids. They were married in 2005. Falcone played an undercover air marshal who eventually gives in to McCarthy's charms while McCarthy played Megan, the exuberant sister of the groom.
Since then, they have also shared screen time in The Boss and Identity Thief.
Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
The love affair between Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons began on the Fargo set. Peggy and Ed started their careers as high school sweethearts in 2015, although they didn't start dating until the following year.
Their subsequent on-screen journey took place in the 2021 movie The Power of the Dog, for which Dunst received an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress and Plemons received a contender for Best Actor. Although neither received a statuette from the March 2022 event, they had a lot to celebrate when they got married in Jamaica a few months later. Plemons and Dunst are parents to two sons.
The Smiths' journey to becoming one of Hollywood's most well-known (and talked-about) couples began in 1994, when Pinkett Smith tried out in vain for a part on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The following year, they started dating, and they got married in 1997.
They re-appeared together as a couple in Ali in 2001. Muhammad Ali's first wife, Sonji Roi, was portrayed by Pinkett Smith, while Smith's portrayal of the legendary boxer earned him an Oscar nomination.
Jaden and Willow, as well as Smith's eldest son from his first marriage, Trey, are all raised by the pair.
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise (Eyes Wide Shut)
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman originally started dating after playing lovers in the 1990 movie Days of Thunder, which established them as one of the most prominent A-list couples of the decade. By the time of their divorce in 2001, they had also acted together in the romantic drama Far and Away (1992) and the sensual thriller Eyes Wide Shut. They were married a few months after they first met (1999).
Timothy McGraw and Faith Hill (1883)
Although they have collaborated on music for the whole of their lives, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw's acting partnership was only established in the single-season drama 1883 in 2021.
A Yellowstone spin-off, 1883 chronicled the arduous trek made by the Dutton family's forebears from Texas to the western states. James and Margaret Dutton are portrayed by Hill and McGraw. One might imagine that since the couple has been married since 1996 and has three daughters that it would be simple for them to translate their connection to the screen.
Hill claimed that she refused to practice lines with her spouse at home in order to completely inhabit the role. In 2022, she stated to The Independent that it had to be off-limits for her since "it was off-limits for me." "When you've been with someone for so long and know them both so well... James needed to know Margaret, and I wanted to get to know him.
Emily Blunt and John Krasinski (A Quiet Place)
John Krasinski and Emily Blunt got engaged in November 2008 and got married in Como, Italy, in 2010. It took until 2018 for them to bring their romance to the big screen in the post-apocalyptic horror film A Quiet Place, despite the fact that they were both often cast actors in Hollywood.
In the movie, which Krasinski both directed and co-wrote, the couple plays parents who have to protect their children from hearing-impaired, blind killer monsters.
Julius Tennon and Viola Davis (How to Get Away with Murder)
In 2003, Viola Davis wed Julius Tennon, another actor. The two also had a fake romantic relationship on a season four episode of How to Get Away With Murder in 2018 even though the majority of their professional collaborations take place off-screen through their production company JuVee Productions.
On a flight, Tennon's character, Annalise Keating, meets Davis' character, Annalise Keating, and they later go to a hotel room together.
Edward Burns and Maxine Bahns (She’s the One)
Edward Burns wrote, directed and starred in the 1996 romantic comedy She’s the One, and cast his then-girlfriend Maxine Bahns as his character’s love interest. Though the film received middling reviews, most of the critique was saved for Bahns’s performance.
“Throw a rock out the window, and it’s sure to hit someone with more acting talent than Bahns,” wrote critic Mick LaSalle at the time, adding: “In a way, it’s rather sweet that Burns keeps casting Bahns. But She’s the One would have been much improved had Burns given Jennifer Aniston the Bahns role.”
The relationship wasn’t to last. Burns married model Christy Turlington in 2003, while Bahns is still acting, her most recent role being in Nicholas Winding Refn’s 2019 film Too Old to Die Young.
Angela Bassett and Courtney B Vance (ER)
Angela Bassett first met her husband, fellow actor Courtney B Vance, while they were students at Yale School of Drama in 1986. However, their romance didn’t blossom until a decade later, and they married in 1997.
2009 marked their first appearance as a couple on screen. Bassett was playing Dr Cate Banfield in ER, and Vance joined the cast for a multi-episode arc as her husband, Russell, in the 15th and final season of the medical drama. Prior to this, they’d played a couple in a production of His Girl Friday at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2005.
Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, two comedic actors from Zoolander While working on the Heat Vision and Jack pilot episode in 1999, which was never picked up, Christine Taylor and Ben Stiller met. They started dating and appeared in many movies together, the first of which being Zoolander in 2001.
Taylor portrayed the journalist who eventually started an affair with the comical fashion icon, while Stiller portrayed the film's titular dim supermodel. Along with Tropic Thunder, Zoolander 2, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and the TV shows Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm, they have collaborated on other projects.
The pair separated in 2017, but they got back together and continued to live together until the Covid shutdown in 2020.
