Co-stars or couples? 6 Hollywood pairs who sparked dating rumours

Yahoo

4 days ago

As Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson's dating rumours continue, we look at other co-stars who were said to have found love working together.
It's a tale as old as time - two film stars meet on the set of a movie and find their on-screen chemistry spills over into real-life romance.
With rumours around Naked Gun co-stars Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson possibly dating, whilst Tom Cruise has allegedly found his latest romance in Ana De Armas, who he's set to begin filming with soon, love is reportedly in the air in Hollywood.
Although it's true that some high-profile relationships began between co-stars during filming, others have welcomed media speculation as a savvy marketing ploy to focus the spotlight on their movies.
Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson
The Naked Gun has had a reboot, with Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson taking the starring roles - and they've appeared to encourage the rumours that romance blossomed on set.
Neeson told People in 2024: "With Pamela, first off, I'm madly in love with her. She's just terrific to work with. I can't compliment her enough, I'll be honest with you. No huge ego. She just comes in to do the work. She's funny and so easy to work with. She's going to be terrific in the film."
Meanwhile, Anderson said that her co-star "sincerely looked after me — wrapped his coat around me when I was cold."
At the film's premiere, E! News asked what had surprised them the most about each other and Anderson replied while gazing at Neeson: "Just how kind and sweet and funny you are. He's very silly."
"Pamela's very silly, too," added Neeson. "Just a great woman."
Neeson has reportedly been single for 16 years following the death of his wife Natasha Richardson in a skiing accident in 2009, and Anderson divorced her fourth husband Dan Hayhurst in 2022, so their fans are excited at the prospect of them finding happiness together.
The film stars went along with The Naked Gun's silliness by pretending to be caught kissing ahead of an appearance on The Today Show in the US. When asked whether they were "an item", Anderson joked: "I don't understand the question."
Neeson added: "I had never met Pamela before. We met on set and we discovered we had a lovely, budding chemistry - as two actors. I thought, this is nice, let's not mould this, let's just let it breathe. And that's what we did."
Tom Cruise and Ana De Armas
Rumours have been swirling about Tom Cruise and Ana De Armas for most of 2025, with the pair set to begin filming Deeper together in August.
Whispers started back in February when they were spotted dining together in London on Valentine's Day, although they claimed it was just a business meeting and De Armas said that Cruise was just a mentor.
But over the summer, their bond seems to have deepened - in July, they were seen on a yacht together in Menorca and later at one of Oasis's Wembley dates in London.
They swiftly moved on to Vermont, where the relationship seemed to be confirmed as they were pictured holding hands on a walk around town.
Cynics have wondered whether the pair were shrewdly promoting their movies earlier this year (Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning for Cruise and Ballerina for De Armas), as well as, of course, Deeper.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
It was the co-star romance that rocked the 00s, when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were said to have fallen for each other while filming 2005's Mr & Mrs Smith, despite Pitt being married to Jennifer Aniston at the time.
Aniston filed for divorce not long after the film was completed, sending rumours and theories flying that Jolie was behind the split. Pitt and Jolie grew closer throughout 2005 and became parents to six children together - three biological and three adopted. However, they split in 2016 with Jolie alleging Pitt had been physically and verbally abusive.
Pitt and Jolie have always denied anything happened before he broke up with Aniston, but in 2007 she told Vogue of their spark on the Mr & Mrs Smith set.
"Brad was a huge surprise to me," she said. "I think we were both the last two people who were looking for a relationship. I certainly wasn't. I was quite content to be a single mom with Mad. And I didn't know much about exactly where Brad was in his personal life. But it was clear he was with his best friend, someone he loves and respects. And so we were both living, I suppose, very full lives."
She added that she had started to look forward to going to work more and more because of Pitt, saying: "It took until the end of the shoot for us to realise that it might mean something more than we'd earlier allowed ourselves to believe. And both knowing that the reality of that was a big thing, something that was going to take a lot of serious consideration."
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga
There's no denying that Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga formed a strong friendship while making 2018 film A Star is Born...but was it something more?
Cooper told Time of Lady Gaga: "I love her so deeply. It's because we were at our most vulnerable together."
Meanwhile, Gaga fuelled the rumours at an awards presentation where she told Cooper: "I'm so grateful to you, not just for making me a better actress, but I've been able to call on you as a friend, and cry and be myself and have you never ever judge me and still respect me as a professional. I've never had an artistic experience like this before."
But the big moment came when the pair took to the stage to perform Shallow from the film at the 2019 Oscars, gazing lovingly at each other over the piano. Many of those watching thought it was confirmation of a romance, but both have since said it was clever staging to keep them in character.
Cooper told The Hollywood Reporter: "They kind of fall in love in that scene in the film. It's that explosive moment that happens to them on a stage in front of thousands of people… It would have been so weird if we were both on stools facing the audience."
Lady Gaga has also shrugged off the rumours, telling Elle in 2019: "Quite frankly, I think the press is very silly. I mean, we made a love story. For me, as a performer and as an actress, of course we wanted people to believe that we were in love. And we wanted people to feel that love at the Oscars. We wanted it to go right through the lens of that camera and to every television that it was being watched on."
Cooper split from Irina Shayk, who he shares a daughter with, in 2019 and is now dating Gigi Hadid. Gaga got together with Michael Polansky in 2020 and they got engaged in 2025.
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney
Another are-they-aren't-they "couple" who admitted relationship rumours were a useful tool to promote their film were Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, who co-starred in 2023 rom-com Anyone But You.
The pair appeared very flirty at a CinemaCon appearance and Sweeney was even spotted attending Powell's sister's wedding, but she later said she was still very happily together with fiance Jonathan Davino.
She told Variety: "It's a rom-com. That's what people want! Glen and I don't really care. We have so much fun together, and we respect each other so much; he's such a hard worker, and I'm a hard worker. We talk all the time like, 'That's really funny.'"
Powell was open about the benefits of the rumour as he told The New York Times: "Sydney and I have a ton of fun together, and we have a ton of effortless chemistry. Sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit — and it worked wonderfully. Sydney is very smart."
In a Saturday Night Live appearance, Sweeney said: "The craziest rumour I've seen is that while I was filming Anyone But You, I was having an affair with my co-star Glen Powell. That is obviously not true."
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams
This celebrity love story was a little different - fans of 2004's The Notebook desperately wanted the sweeping romance between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams' characters to translate to real life, but the truth was a little more complicated.
Director Nick Cassavetes broke hearts when he revealed that the pair had actually hated each other, with Gosling even asking him to bring in a replacement for McAdams, leading to a screaming row between the co-stars.
It wasn't until a while after the film's release that love really blossomed - Gosling told The Guardian in 2007: "We inspired the worst in each other. It was a strange experience, making a love story and not getting along with your co-star in any way. I don't know what happened. Two years later, I saw her in New York and we started getting the idea that maybe we were wrong about each other."
They were together for two years, and although they split - Gosling later married Eva Mendes while McAdams is in a long-term relationship with screenwriter Jamie Linden and both have two children each now - the pair still have nothing but good things to say about each other.
"Women are mad at me,' Gosling told GQ in 2007 after their split. "A girl came up to me on the street and she almost smacked me, like, 'How could you? How could you let a girl like that go?' I feel like I want to give people hugs, they seem so sad. Rachel and I should be the ones getting hugs. Instead, we're consoling everybody else."
He added: "God bless The Notebook. It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that."