From Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, there’s nothing better than TV co-stars married in real life. The idea of actors falling in love with one another and getting married after working on a movie or TV show together is nothing new. Sometimes, it has been scandalous, especially when one (or both) persons were already with someone else at the time. But the heart wants what the heart wants, as they say.
And while many TV co-stars who got married were married long before they started working together on a show or movie, some actually met, or at least fell in love, on set while they were co-stars.
Updated on July 31st, 2021, by Lynn Gibbs: There’s nothing that makes a PR company happier than when a movie or TV show they’re working on has two stars that fall in love with each other. Viewers and fans become obsessed with the idea of a spontaneous romance and watching their love for each other form onscreen. Plus, married TV actors create an instant buzz. Orange Is the New Black’s Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli is a great example of two women who fell for each other on set and got married afterward. The beauty of TV actors who are married is hoping they appear in future projects together and watching the transformation of their relationship.
15 Grace [Gealey] Byers And Trai Byers (Empire)
Trai Byers and Grace Byers were both originally cast in the hit series Empire back in 2015 when they first met. They were two of the best characters in the series, and it showed off-screen. However, Grace was in a serious relationship when she met Trai, but their connection was so strong she had no choice but to end that relationship and follow her heart. On the talk show FABLife, Grace admitted she wasn’t a fan of dating people she worked with but Trai was the exception.
According to All Vip, Trai proposed to Grace and the pair got married a year later. These days the couple is still going strong.
14 David Tennant And Georgia Moffett (Doctor Who)
David Tennant and Georgia Moffett met on set of Doctor Who in season 4. She had a guest-starring role in the episode ‘The Doctor’s Daughter,’ where she played her future husband’s daughter. The two fell for each other on set and began dating shortly afterward.
In 2011, the couple had their first child together before getting married a year later. These days, both actors are still in film and currently have five kids together.
13 Johanna Braddy And Freddie Stroma (UnREAL)
Johanna Braddy and Freddie Stroma first met each other in 2015 on the set of Lifetime’s UnREAL. The show took aim at The Bachelor and had Freddie as the bachelor, Adam Cromwell, and Johanna, Anna Martin, as the contestant. The couple didn’t work on-screen, but their love was brewing off set.
A year after the show was released, the couple became engaged and married in the same year. This made viewers absolutely fawn after the actors in real life since there was so much chemistry on screen.
12 Adam Brody And Leighton Meester
TV fans’ minds exploded when Adam Brody as Seth Cohen of The OC fame and Leighton Meester as Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl fame began dating. They were two of the biggest stars at the time of their respective shows and were the most wanted people in show business. Them dating only seemed right.
The two met briefly when Leighton was filming Gossip Girl but didn’t get a chance to connect until working together on the movie The Oranges, per US Magazine. While Brody was dating someone else at the time, he and Leighton reconnected when he was single and the rest is history. The pair now have two kids together.
11 Anna Paquin And Stephen Moyer (True Blood)
The pair met while filming the pilot for True Blood in 2007 and immediately fell in love. They announced they were engaged in 2009 while the show was still on the air and officially married in 2010.
The pair remain married, now with twins along with Moyer’s two children from a previous marriage. True Blood remained on the air through 2014. And to think that other actors were almost cast as their characters Bill and Sookie!
10 Mila Kunis And Ashton Kutcher (That ’70s Show)
Technically, Kunis and Kutcher did not get married while they were co-stars. That actually came many, many years later. The pair played high school loves on the late ’90s/early ’00s sitcom That ’70s Show. Once the series ended and the cast went their separate ways, Kunis and Kutcher’s girlfriend and boyfriend status only ever existed on screen.
Kunis went on to date Home Alone child actor Macaulay Culkin from 2002 to 2011 while Kutcher married Demi Moore in 2005, but they also split in 2011. Call it fate but by 2012, Kunis and Kutcher had reunited and fans were delighted when their long-time on-screen romance became the real thing. They married in 2015 and now share two kids together.
9 Alexis Bledel And Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men)
Bledel is best known for her role as Rory Gilmore on Gilmore Girls, as well as the Netflix reunion miniseries, and for playing Emily in The Handmaid’s Tale. But in between those projects, she had a small guest role on Mad Men as Beth, a love interest for Pete Campbell, the sleazy, overly ambitious account executive who cheated on his wife, repeatedly.
It seems the on-screen chemistry was real as Bledel went on to date and then marry Vincent Kartheiser, who played Pete. They announced their engagement the following year and now have a child together.
8 Alyson Hannigan And Alexis Denisof (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
In 1999, actors Alyson Hannigan and Alexis met each other on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the rest was history. Alyson played Willow from season 1 to season 7, while Alexis played Wesley. When the show ended, the couple quickly married in 2003. These days, they are one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting couples. The couple has two daughters together and renewed their vows in 2013 after 10 years together.
According to Fabiosa, the secret to their marriage is being best friends and not going longer than three weeks without seeing each other.
7 Jared Padalecki And Genevieve Cortese (Supernatural)
Known for his role of Sam Winchester on Supernatural, Padalecki got engaged to Cortese, his co-star on the series, back in 2010. Cortese was cast in a recurring role as the demon Ruby, and that was that.
The couple remains together today, now with three kids. And their love story was marked with a very romantic moment when Padalecki proposed in front of Cortese’s favorite painting, “Joan of Arc” by Jules Bastien-Lepage at the MOMA in New York.
6 Mark Consuelos And Kelly Ripa (All My Children)
While everyone knows Kelly Ripa these days as co-host of Live! with Kelly and Ryan, it’s easy to forget that, back in the ’90s, she was a soap star. Ripa appeared in the daytime soap opera All My Children, one of the best modern soap operas. While there, she met a handsome man that would go on to become her husband, Mark Consuelos, who was also appearing on the show.
The pair wasted no time and eloped the year after they met. More than two decades later, they remain very much in love, with three children, the eldest of whom is already in his 20’s.
5 Jennifer Garner And Scott Foley (Felicity)
Before Jennifer was one-half of “Bennifer” after working with Ben Affleck on the set of Daredevil and beginning a romance, she was married to someone else she met on set. Garner and Scott Foley met on the set of the TV show Felicity in 1998 and sparks flew. They got married two years later but separated three years later.
Garner apparently has a thing for dating co-stars because from 2003 to 2004, she dated another co-star, Michael Vartan, with whom she was working on one of her best shows, Alias.
4 Chad Michael Murray And Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill)
Most recently appearing in the CW series Riverdale, Murray gained recognition for his role as Lucas in One Tree Hill in the early 2000s. Interestingly, while Murray fell hard for his co-star Sophia Bush, their marriage only lasted a few months. Bush even filed for an annulment citing fraud, though that was denied. The couple was, however, granted a divorce.
Murray is now married to another co-star, Sarah Roemer, from Chosen, with whom he shares two children. Bush, meanwhile, remains single, her last reported relationship being with Dan Fredinburg, a program manager for Google. They ended things in 2014, and sadly, Fredinburg passed away a year later, the result of head injuries from an avalanche at Mount Everest.
3 Kaitlin Olson And Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia)
Olson rose to fame when she snagged the starring role in the sitcom The Mick, but she also concurrently starred on the FX comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the latter of which continues to air.
Interestingly, McElhenny is not only her co-star on the show, playing the hilarious Mac, but he is also co-creator and producer of the series who hired her! They began dating secretly during the second season, then finally made their romance public. They now have two kids together. But they’re not the only ones, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, who plays The Waitress, and Charlie Day are also married in real life in a heartwarming contrast to their characters’ dynamic on the show.
2 Megan Mullally And Nick Offerman (Will & Grace)
Technically, Mullally and Offerman were dating long before Offerman had a small guest role on the Thanksgiving episode of the fourth season of Will & Grace. They were dating by that time, having first met while acting in a play.
After officially tying the knot, the pair went on to co-star in many other projects together, including movies like The Kings of Summer and series like Parks and Recreation. His role as Ron Swanson had some of the best underrated moments in the series. The couple has also done voice roles together for shows like Bob’s Burgers and movies like Hotel Transylvania 2.
1 Kit Harington And Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones)
Who could have ever thought that the woman who spoke the line “You know nothing Jon Snow” would capture actor Kit Harington’s heart in real life. Harington and Leslie, who played Ygritte, Snow’s first love, began dating in 2011 while filming Game of Thrones, and being lovers on screen as well.
They dated for quite some time before marrying in 2018. Leslie posed for a magazine shoot in September 2020, clearly pregnant with the couple’s child, and they are still going strong today.
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