Inside Kirsten Dunst's Road to Finding Love With Jesse Plemons

Kirsten Dunst had an instant connection with Jesse Plemons on the set of Fargo. Two kids and a trip down the aisle later, the Civil War actors still can't get enough of each other.

By Natalie Finn Apr 30, 2024 11:00 AMTags
Watch: Kirsten Dunst Reveals Why Her Son Got Into a Fight With Jimmy Kimmel's Son at School

Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons only do dysfunction onscreen.

The couple hit it off—and earned Emmy nominations—playing the endlessly misguided Peggy Blumquist and her husband Ed, a butcher with some serious self-defense skills but really poor judgment.

"He's my favorite actor—the best I've ever worked with," Dunst told PorterEdit in 2019. "I just knew he would be in my life forever. I didn't know what capacity that would be at the time. When [Fargo] was over, I just missed him terribly. We didn't get together until a year later. We were both smart enough that we were wondering if the connection was just because we were working together. But it was real."

Sure enough, they got engaged in 2017, welcomed sons Ennis Howard and James Robert, now 5 and 2, and eventually married in 2022.

In the meantime, they played yet another uncomfortably wedded couple in 2021's The Power of the Dog and are in theaters now on dueling sides of a disturbing political divide in the dystopian thriller Civil War.

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Kirsten Dunst Through the Years

In fact, Dunst suggested Plemons for the small but haunting part of an if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us soldier when another actor dropped out and Plemons was already in town with her and the kids.

"We're lucky Jesse did this for us," the veteran star, who plays a jaded photojournalist in the Alex Garland-directed film, told Entertainment Weekly. "Alex is lucky that he's my husband and he was free. We don't really have much of an exchange in that scene, so I could really enjoy his performance. I'm just blown away by him as an actor."

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But though Dunst has said she felt "an immediate connection" with Plemons when they first met, she was in no rush to share this life-altering revelation with the world early on. (Though she did tell a few people: "I didn't remember saying this," she said on the LA TimesThe Envelope podcast in 2021, "but one of my best friends told me that I said to her that 'I will know this man for the rest of my life. I just know it.'")

It wasn't particularly surprising that she chose to keep the details of their relationship private until the rock on her finger made the announcement for her. 

Having been very famous since her breakout role at 10 in Interview With the Vampire, Dunst—who's turning 42 on April 30—had been dating in the public eye for the better part of 20 years before meeting the man she has lovingly called her soulmate, and it felt as though every male acquaintance (or co-star) was a date until proven otherwise.

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When she was about 15, fresh from an arc on ER and the Oscar-nominated Wag the Dog, Dunst hit it off with Jake Hoffman, son of her co-star Dustin Hoffman. "He wants me to be his daughter-in-law!" she joked at the time.

But they were just a couple of kids. Dunst had a few things she needed to do first, before devoting serious time to romance—such as finish high school. She graduated from Notre Dame High in L.A. in 2000, and never looked back as her career further took off with The Virgin Suicides and the insta-classic Bring It On.

(She and Jake remained friends, reuniting for a warm reunion at a Tribeca Film Festival event in 2010.)

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Kissing Costars: TV

Starting in 2001 Dunst starred in three Spider-Man movies with Tobey Maguire, two them made after the onscreen love interests had briefly dated in real life (the first, but not the last, Mary Jane and Peter Parker whose chemistry translated off-camera).

"I actually had some worries about [their breakup]," Sam Raimi, who directed all three films, told the Sydney Morning-Herald in 2007 after Spider-Man 3 came out.

"They apparently began dating with each other, I think, in the middle of the first movie...although I didn't know it at the time," the filmmaker said, "but definitely they eventually broke up before the second movie. I was concerned they wouldn't get the same chemistry back, but it was just me worrying.

"They really like each other, I think, very much. And that relationship probably just added to their ability to trust each other."

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Asked at the Spider-Man 3 premiere if it was easier doing press with Maguire and Raimi because they'd all known each other for so long, Dunst told a reporter, "Yes, 'cause we can wink at each other and have a camaraderie that's, you know, stronger over the course of three movies."

Nowadays, her son James is a big fan of the Marvel superhero and enjoys running around the house pretending to flick webbing out of his wrists.

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Hollywood's Most Frequent Co-Stars

Not long after the first Spider-Man came out, Dunst started seeing Jake Gyllenhaal after they were introduced by her Mona Lisa Smile co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal

Knowing that any Hollywood relationship coverage was automatically tagged "engagement watch," Dunst told People, "Oh, I'm too young to get married. Seriously, I'm 22 years old. It's so annoying that they put pressure on you."

They got pretty serious—red carpets, moving in together, sharing a dog—but split up in 2004.

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Talking to Howard Stern in 2015, Gyllenhaal blamed a fear of commitment for past relationships failing despite having been in love a few times.

"I think it was me," he said. "I think I probably just got scared." (There are thoughts on this subject.)

In 2007, Dunst got involved with Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell, who readily admitted later that he wasn't great boyfriend material back then.

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On-Again, Off-Again Celeb Couples
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"I guess I was constantly attempting to be what I thought I should be doing in that scenario [as a rock star]," the British musician told the U.K.'s Telegraph in 2013, referring to the time frame that included his relationship with Dunst. "To be fair, I'm sure there were times when I was obnoxious. But that's rock'n'roll, you know?"

According to a 2014 profile of him in the U.K.'s Independent, Dunst dumped him not long after he rode his motorcycle through her house, leaving a trail of oil in his wake.

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"We all want the bad guy who doesn't give you what you want," Dunst said in the September 2011 issue of Elle. "I did a lot of sitting in my car, listening to sad music, crying over boys."

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She was dating Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel at the time.

"He's not into partying and that works," Dunst said. "We have similar schedules: long periods of time off and periods of mad work. When I've finished work, I travel to be with him. It's special."

However, she was also shooting On the Road—and by the beginning of 2012, she was seeing costar Garrett Hedlund .

They seemed pretty settled, too, becoming each other's other half on the red carpet and looking awfully happy about it.

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Explaining how he won Dunst (whom he called "my gal") over, Hedlund told Details in 2013: "I took her out on a 3 a.m. canoe ride. It was not a stable canoe. We fell out and had to swim back in mucky, sh--ty water, like golf-pond water."

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But the timing seemed to be right, because Dunst was finally letting herself enjoy the fruits of her impressive career.

"I'm not as worried as I used to be," Dunst told Red magazine in 2014. "When I was younger, if I wasn't working, I would get anxiety. I'd feel like I should be doing something. But now I'm so good at chilling out. In my thirties I've become really good friends with relaxing."

Asked about Hedlund, Dunst told Town & Country in the summer of 2015, "We've been together for three and a half years, so, yes, it's going really well. We're the same age. We have similar backgrounds. He feels like family to me."

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Speaking of family, Dunst had told Red U.K. in 2014, "I'm in baby mode because two of my really good friends are pregnant right now. Thirty-three is a good age to have your first baby."

It also proved a great age for her to do some prestige TV. In 2015 she joined many of her fellow film stars in taking part in the small-screen renaissance, scoring a role on the second season of the critically acclaimed FX series Fargo.

And 21 years after her first Golden Globe nomination, for Interview With a Vampire, she got another one, Best Actress in a Limited Series or Made for TV Movie for her role as unfulfilled hairdresser Peggy, who won't let her husband Ed—or the guy she mows over with her car (pre-Succession Kieran Culkin, not the favorite son in the Gerhardt crime family)—stand in the way of her dreams of self-actualizing.

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Peggy is "so fun to play, and it's nice for me too because now I'll have more opportunities to play roles in the comedic world again," Dunst told EW.com. "People always remember the last thing you did. And I love comedy—I really enjoy playing weird characters."

Of course, the TV Academy and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association weren't the only ones left impressed by Dunst's performance. 

Hedlund was her date to the 2015 Emmys and the 2016 Golden Globes, but they broke up a couple months later.

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By that summer, Plemons, who had called working with Dunst "a gift," quietly swooped in and got the girl, officially putting an end to the star's days of crying over the bad boys (if not crying with emotion over her partner's serious acting talent).

They opted to not do the red carpet thing just yet when they were both nominated for Emmys in September 2016, but they didn't hide their affection for each other at the after-party.

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As Dunst has said, she needed a minute to figure out whether she was in love with working with the guy or the guy himself.

It turned out to be both.

Dunst recalled binging Friday Night Lights to get acquainted with her Fargo husband's work before filming got underway in chilly Calgary—"I knew he was awesome and that we were about to work together," she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live in November 2021—though she noted that she had yet to watch Breaking Bad (in which he played another stone-cold killer who's tough to shake).

"That's the last thing he wants to watch with me," she explained, noting that their friend Aaron Paul's wife may not have ever seen the show, either, so it wasn't just her. (She did, however, watch the Breaking Bad sequel movie El Camino, which came out in 2018.)

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They Dated? Surprising Star Couples

Suffice it to say, Plemons and Dunst both relished the chance to reteam for The Power of the Dog, playing shy rancher George and recently widowed single mother Rose, whose sanity is threatened by George's cruel and manipulative brother, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

All three actors were nominated for Oscars.

"I mean, when I watch Jesse and I on the mountaintop, I'm like, 'Oh my God, we're so dorky,' because we have to act so reserved with each other, and we have a child together," Dunst, who also called working with director Jane Campion a "lifelong dream," said on The Envelope, "It's just funny to pretend there's no history with someone you have a tremendous amount of history with. It's just weird."

"Maybe if we were alone on the mountaintop and like having, like, I don't know, a nice cocktail, it'd be great," she continued. "But it was just like, he's in his little outfit and I'm teaching him how to waltz, and it's all really old-timey and cute. But also his line when he's like, 'It's just so nice to not be alone" is, I think, one of the best lines of the film. When he did that, I cried off camera. I was just—I was so moved by his performance that day. And also I feel I wasn't that good of a dance teacher. That waltz. I mean, I got it together. I did it. I figured out how to teach him."

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But overall, she said, "We love working together. So, it's really, really easy to work with each other. We're very honest. We're very down to try anything. No one judges anybody. There's no ego. It's just how do we make this the most alive together and the most real?"

The couple went to New Zealand with Ennis to shoot the film in January 2020 and ended up on lockdown in March when COVID-19 shut down productions around the world, including their own. So, they rented a house outside Auckland, "for our son to have some grass to run around on," Dunst told the LA Times, and enjoyed the natural wildlife (their cat Sid "brings us a mouse every night") and their killer sound system, sitting in the perfect sonic spot they dubbed "the triangle." 

"Anyway," she said, "that's what Jesse and I will do when we get home. Wash our hands, put the baby to bed and sit in the triangle."

They resumed filming that June, one of the few shoots allowed to go on amid the country's strict pandemic protocols." Jesse and I were lucky we were doing a movie together," Dunst told The New York Times"We had each other through this whole thing, to laugh with, to b--ch with."

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And they certainly didn't get tired of each other.

"I was like, as soon as we are done with this movie," Dunst recalled, "let's try and have another baby."

When the New York Times came knocking at their L.A.-area home in August 2021, Dunst held up Ennis' baby brother, James, her "newest guy, the Big Kahuna."

"I'm so tired, I haven't slept through the night in four months," she shared. "I've developed an eye twitch, too. Yeah, I'm in a really special place!"

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Civil War actually marks Dunst's return to the big screen after a two-year break to focus on her boys (and pass on the "sad mom" roles she was being offered after Power of the Dog), though she's been no less the movie star on red carpet date nights with Plemons. 

"To be honest, that's been hard for me...because I need to feed myself," she told Marie Claire of not working in an article published March 5. "The hardest thing is being a mom and...not feeling like, I have nothing for myself. That's every mother—not just me. There's definitely less good roles for women my age."

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But then she read the script for Civil War and, not having done anything like it, signed right up for active duty.

And when Plemons was a last-minute addition to the production, there was no chance that having this real-life couple on set would add any extra drama.

"Because we fell in love on a set, we fell in love creatively first," Dunst said. "I think we'll always come back to that, in a very not-involving-our-real-life way. And also, listen, we don't talk to each other on set. I left him alone, he left me alone."

But only during working hours.

"I love working with him," Dunst added. "What's nice is that we trust each other so much. He sent me a scene last night of this miniseries he's working on to get my opinion. If I'm having a hard time deciding on something, I'll have him read it. I trust his opinion more than anyone, and he cares about me more than anyone." 

Maybe even more importantly, she noted, "We hate the same things."

That being said, Dunst was even more blown away by his chilling performance "'cause he is the kindest person," she gushed on Late Night With Seth Meyers in April. "He's just a really fantastic actor."

And while Dunst and Meyers are an impressive three-for-three as far as quality projects as costars go, read on for more couples who fell in love on set:

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes

No stranger to dating co-stars after romances with Sandra Bullock and Rachel McAdams, Gosling fell for Mendes on the set of The Place Beyond the Pines. But the pair have managed to keep their relationship private since they began dating in 2013.

The couple have since welcomed two daughters, Esmeralda, 8, and Amada, 6, and Mendes opened up about how ending up with The Notebook star changed her opinion on motherhood

"I was lucky enough to work my bum off for 20 years," the New York & Company designer said on Sydney's Nova 96.9 in October 2020. "I never wanted babies before until I fell in love with Ryan, and then it just kind of worked out to where I was 40 and having my first baby and then I think I was 42 with my second one, so it worked out in that way that I had a career and then I changed my focus to my family."

And she's not ruling out a future on-screen collaboration with Gosling. 

"I really want to work with Ryan again. My most fun experience was being on set with him when he was directing," she told E! News. "It was really so creatively satisfying being in it together and he's such an amazing director. I would love that experience again, for sure."

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton

The singers, who met on the set of The Voice, have been nearly inseparable ever since they first started dating back in November 2015.

While Shelton and Stefani both admitted that they had initially bonded over the ending of their respective marriages, it seems as though their love affair had lasting power from the get-go.

In an interview with Billboard, Shelton recalled falling head over heels for the singer and how the two ultimately helped each other through their heartache. "Gwen saved my life," he said. "Who else on earth could understand going through a high-profile divorce from another musician?"

After five years of dating, Shelton popped the question in October 2020 and the couple got married in an intimate ceremony in July 2021.

According to Carson Daly, who officiated their wedding, the nuptials were "a perfect blend of country and glamour."

"It was as elegant and refined and cool as Gwen is, and it was country and down-home and fun as Blake is," he told Today, adding, "They just work. They're an unlikely pair. They're like if you paired delicious fried chicken with a glass of champagne. On paper, on the menu, it doesn't seem to work, but it works. They're comfort food with class, and everybody roots for that."

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos

The beloved couple first met in 1995 when they played love interests on the popular soap opera All My Children. The morning talk show personality and the Riverdale star then eloped to Las Vegas on May 1, 1996.

Consuelos knew "pretty early on" Ripa was the one for him, once telling Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live, "We would go out with groups of people from work and slowly each date would go that the groups started getting smaller and smaller until it was just us two. I was shy, I wasn't very aggressive that way."

But Ripa revealed the couple almost split before their wedding.

"We broke up and we got back together the day before we went off and eloped," she detailed on the Comments By Celebs podcast in 2018. "Yeah, we eloped. We went to Vegas and got married."

More than 27 years and three children later, their marriage is still going strong. And, in a full-circle moment, Ripa and Consuelos are sharing the screen together, with Consuelos officially replacing Ryan Seacrest as her permanent Live co-host this past April. 

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly

From the moment the Jennifer's Body star met the rapper on their shared movie set in 2020, she knew their relationship was destined to become what she called a "once in a lifetime" romance.

Chatting with their Midnight in the Switchgrass director Randall Emmett on his and his then-fiancée Lala Kent's podcast in July 2020, Fox recalled inquiring who was going to fill the empty chair on set. "And [Emmett] was like, 'Oh, we just got Machine Gun Kelly,'" she said, "and immediately, I was like, 'Uh oh.' Because I knew, I could feel that some wild s--t was going to happen to me from that meeting but I wasn't sure what. I just felt it in my solar plexus that something was going to come from that."

Fox, who quietly separated from husband of nine years Brian Austin Green in late 2019, went on to call MGK her "twin flame," explaining they are more than soul mates. 

And they haven't been shy about showing their love for one another: Fox starred in Kelly's music video, they got tattoos to mark their romance and made their red carpet debut as a couple before getting engaged in January 2022

While breakup rumors surfaced in February after Fox addressed allegations of Kelly's infidelity in a since-deleted Instagram post, the couple is still together.

Kit Harington and Rose Leslie

Just as his character Jon Snow couldn't resist falling for Ygritte, Harington fell in love with his Game of Thrones co-star after she joined the HBO fantasy series in its second season. In an interview with Vogue Italia, he recalled shooting those episodes as his favorite memory from the show.

"Because the country is beautiful, because the Northern Lights are magical, and because it was there that I fell in love," he said. "If you're already attracted to someone, and then they play your love interest in the show, it becomes very easy to fall in love."

While their onscreen romance proved ill-fated, Harington and Leslie got married in June 2018 and have since welcomed two children whose names have not been made public. 

Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song

The Home Alone actor and the former Disney Channel star met making 2019's Changeland and their romance surprised their director Seth Green, who told Esquire, "I didn't see that one coming." 

Song explained to Entertainment Tonight that they bonded over their shared backgrounds as child actors. "You just look each other in the eye and you nod and we know," she said. 

Engaged since 2022, the couple have two children: Two-year-old son Dakota Song Culkin and a second son who was born last March and whose name has not yet been revealed.

Sarah Shahi and Adam Demos

The couple met on the set of Netflix's Sex/Life, in which they play angsty former couple Billie and Brad, so it's no wonder those intimate scenes are so steamy: Shahi and Demos went public with their romance in December 2020, with fans loving their adorable displays of affection on social media.

And mixing business and pleasure has been easy for the couple, with Shahi telling E! News that working with her boyfriend is "one of her favorite things." As she put it, Adam is one of her "all-time favorite scene partners."

"With him, it's just that easy," she explained. "I just have to look at him and 99 percent of my work is done for me. I'm falling in love with the person in real life, but I'm falling for the person on camera. It just created that extra bit that seeped through the lens. Maybe that's what people loved so much."

Emily VanCamp and Josh Bowman

While their characters' love story didn't have a happy ending on ABC's Revenge, VanCamp and Bowman tied the knot on Dec. 15, 2018, and have been together for more than a decade. 

In August 2021, the couple announced the birth of their first child together. "Welcome to the world our sweet little Iris," VanCamp wrote on Instagram, revealing their baby girl's name. "Our hearts are full."

In February 2024, Emily announced on Instagram that she is pregnant with the couple's second child.

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick

The two met on the set of the 1988 PBS movie Lemon Sky and married later that year and are considered one of Hollywood's strongest relationships after more than 35 years together. The couple are parents to two children—son Travis Bacon, 34, a composer, and daughter Sosie Bacon, 31, who is also an actress.

 

 

Jared Padalecki and Genevieve Cortese

And the hunter fell for the irresistible demon—both on and off screen.

Padalecki and Cortese hit it off when she joined Supernatural in its fourth season as Ruby. And after a two-month engagement, they tied the knot in her hometown of Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2010, with his TV bro Jensen Ackles serving as one of the groomsmen.

The couple, who once again co-starred on the CW's Walker with Cortese playing his character's dead wife in flashbacks, have have three children, sons Thomas, 11, Austin, 9, and daughter Odette, 6.

Josh Dallas and Ginnifer Goodwin

It was a fairy tale romance for Dallas and Goodwin when they co-starred on ABC's fantasy hit Once Upon a Time, playing Prince Charming and Snow White, of course.

"It hit me like a blinding light," Dallas told People in 2012. "I thought, 'I'm in trouble now.'"

As for Goodwin, she knew Dallas was the one when they went on their first date to Disneyland.

"I knew that in fact I was going to marry my husband Josh at Disneyland because I took him for his first time ever and we had just started dating," Goodwin would later detail to Kelly Ripa. "We were on Big Thunder Mountain and he threw his arms in the air and he goes, 'This is the best day of my life' and I was like, 'We're totally getting married.'"

He popped the question in October 2013 and they tied the knot in April 2014. Dallas and Goodwin are the parents of sons Oliver, 9, and Hugo, 6, and the Manifest star is hoping to work with his wife again after their six-year stint on OUAT.

"She's the greatest. I miss working with her every day," he said on Live with Kelly and Ryan. "I think she was like, 'look, we've worked together and we've lived together six years, give me a break.' But I think we'll work together again, I hope so."

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys

It wasn't exactly love at first sight for The Americans co-stars when they met 10 years before working together on the acclaimed FX spy drama. 

"We actually met a very long long time ago," he confessed on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. "I very drunkenly asked her for her number when she was a young, single, slip of a thing, so I sort of knew then when I was 26."

But a decade and plenty of wigs later, Rhys and Russell quietly began dating in 2014 while playing married KGB spies. They welcomed their first child together, son Sam, in May 2016. Russell also has two children from her previous marriage, son River Deary and daughter Willa Deary.

Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn

While they recently teamed up to play Santa and Mrs. Claus for Netflix's The Christmas Chronicles, the beloved Hollywood pair first met on the set of 1968's The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.

But they didn't fall for each other until reconnecting while filming 1984's Swing Shift, despite Hawn telling BBC News, "We both said we would never go out with another actor." The couple went on to star in the 1988 rom-com Overboard.

Partners for 40 years, Russell and Hawn share son Wyatt Russell in addition to each having children from prior relationships, Oliver and Kate Hudson and Boston Russell.

Asked their secret for working well with each other, Russell quipped to E! News, "Do it every 33 years, first of all!"

Wyatt Russell and Meredith Hagner

Talk about following in your parents' footsteps.

Wyatt, the son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, fell for Hagner after they met while working on the 2016 movie Folk Hero & Funny Guy. Later, the two would go on to appear together in Ingrid Goes West.

After getting engaged in 2018, the couple wed the following year at Goldie's house in Aspen. "It was Western themed and everyone came in cowboy hats and boots," a source shared with E! News at the time. "It was a big casual gathering of family and friends that lasted all weekend."

Russell and Hanger welcomed their son Buddy Prine Russell in November 2021.

Kate Mara and Jamie Bell

Well, at least one good thing came out of the universally panned Fantastic Four reboot in 2014.

Mara and Bell fell for each other on the set of the superhero flick, though they didn't spark dating rumors until they were spotted holding hands at a Met Gala after-party in May 2015.

After their July 2017 wedding, Bell gushed  to E! News, "It feels like we've been married for years. In the best way. We're having a great time."

In May 2019, Mara revealed the couple welcomed their first child. "We had a baby a couple weeks ago..." the A Teacher star wrote on Instagram. "Here are her feet." In November 2022, Mara and Bell announced the birth of their second child in similar fashion: "Had a baby a week ago," Mara shared on Instagram. "Here are his feet." Bell also shares son Jack Bell with ex-wife Evan Rachel Wood.

Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara

Kate isn't the only Mara sister to find love on a film set.

In 2013, Phoenix and Mara proved their enviable chemistry when they co-starred in the Oscar-nominated film Her. They then shared the screen in the 2018 biblical drama Mary Magdalene, and according to reports, the couple first realized their attraction to one another while filming the project a year prior in Italy.

The private pair made their red carpet debut at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and quietly got engaged in 2019. And, while accepting the Oscar for Best Actor, The Joker star got emotional while giving Mara a shout-out. Wiping away tears, he told his partner, "I love you."

In September 2020, director Victor Kossakovsky revealed at the Zurich Film Festival that the couple had welcomed a baby boy. He also confirmed that the couple's son was named River, seemingly in honor of Joaquin's late brother River Phoenix, who passed away in 1993 at the age of 23. 

Ryan Bingham and Hassie Harrison

Yellowstone fans were twirling their lassos with glee when the co-stars confirmed their relationship with a fiery photo posted to Bingham's Instagram in April 2022. In the post, the two were seen sharing a kiss in front of an open flame, with the actor captioning their PDA post, "More than a spark." As for Harrison's reaction? She commented, "I love you, cowboy."

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer

It was love at first bite for the couple, who began dating while filming the first season of HBO's True Blood in 2008. 

"There's no one I'd rather work with," Moyer told E! News in 2009. "I love working with her and that's how it all started, by falling in love on camera."

They announced their engagement a year later and tied the knot in August 2010. Moyer and Paquin welcomed twins, Poppy and Charlie, in 2012.

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen

Each having a failed marriage behind them, neither star was looking for love when they arrived on the set of Pontiac Moon in 1993.

"I announced to all my friends—not dramatically, but very seriously—that I was done with relationships," Steenburgen told Closer. But the pair fell for each other while playing husband and wife, with Danson revealing they bonded during a scene in a canoe.

"We paddled in sync," Danson said. "We went out as friends and by the time we came back, we were in love... Ironic how life works in those moments. Once you throw up your arms and surrender, a lot of times things come your way."

In October 2020, the couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, with the Book Club actress gushing to Closer, "I'm ridiculously in love with him. I find him endlessly fascinating. He surprises me all the time and most of all he makes me laugh."

The Good Place actor admitted in the same interview, "I get nervous around her because I want to impress her—I am the luckiest."

Grace Van Patten and Jackson White

After viewers binged the Hulu drama Tell Me Lies, they couldn't help but wonder if Van Patten and White's onscreen chemistry had trickled over into real-life, with the pair fully playing into their are-they-or-aren't-they dynamic in interviews and on social media. And in November of last year, we finally got the answer: No, we're not fibbing, the problematic onscreen pair is together in real-life and, fortunately, toxin-free.

White confirmed their romance with several photobooth snaps from the 2022 CFDA Awards, including a picture of the co-star couple kissing.  He then posted a photo of himself and Van Patten touching tongues with the caption, "if we kiss can we get a s2 @hulu." Spoiler alert: It worked! Tell Me Lies is set to return later this year. 

(Originally published Jan. 13, 2017, at 3 p.m. PT)

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