Movie Friends Who Couldn't Stand Each Other In Real Life
Sure, you've heard of behind-the-scenes romances, bromances, and BFFs –- actors who, when the director yelled "cut," continued their friendships, sometimes intimately, offscreen -– but what about the exact opposite of that? What about co-stars who couldn't stand each other? The ones for whom it was all-business, no pleasure?
It may seem like they're best of friends on the silver screen, but in reality, there are a handful of dynamic duos throughout the history of film who didn't get along when the cameras stopped rolling. And to be honest, that's all part of the job, right? These are trained professionals in the art of making the audience believe the unbelievable, chameleon-ing themselves into their roles, and forging on-screen relationships that, in real life, were nothing of the sort.
So, really, it's all just part of the movie magic machine. And it goes to show how good these actors are at what they do. Because when it comes down to it, all of us have that coworker who gets under our skin; but hiding those feelings is where things get difficult.
Where's the magic?
As co-stars in "Magic Mike," Channing Tatum takes Alex Pettyfer under his wing and into a world of hard-partying, easy money, and, yes, male stripping. But behind the scenes, the two actors weren't as close of friends as the movie suggests. First of all, Pettyfer was upset that he wasn't being paid as much as the rest of the cast. When he found out, he reportedly walked a mile away from the production site for some privacy and screamed. (Although apparently the cast and crew still heard.)
And Pettyfer admitted that he was difficult to work with. "Channing Tatum does not like me," he said on novelist Brett Easton Ellis' podcast. "For many reasons. Many being my own fault." He said that, when they weren't filming scenes, he kept to himself, which led to people believing, "Oh Alex thinks he's f—–g better than everybody else because he doesn't speak to anyone."
And after the production finished, Pettyfer rented an apartment in New York that was owned by a friend of Tatum's. But he left after a few months, claiming there was mold. Then, Pettyfer's cousin died unexpectedly, and he was grieving. And in that state, he forgot to pay his rent. He added: "I all of a sudden got a very negative email from Channing, rightfully so, saying, 'Don't f–k my friends. You owe money. Pay the f—–g money. Don't be a clown.'" Perhaps that's why Pettyfer never came back for the sequel.
Battle of the big men
Big men with big personalities. What could go wrong?
During the filming of "The Fate of the Furious" –- the eighth film in the "Fast" franchise –- there was an alleged beef between two of the films, ahem, biggest stars. Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson reportedly didn't get along so well while on set. And after the production, Johnson took to social media to praise his female co-stars but, cryptically, call out the men.
"There's no other franchise that gets my blood boiling more than this one," he said in a since-deleted post. "My female costars are always amazing, and I love 'em. My male costars, however, are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand-up men and true professionals, while others don't. The ones that don't are too chicken s–t to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses." Although it was unclear exactly who The Rock was referring to, the aim of that jab most likely included Diesel.
Diesel addressed it to clear the air. "I don't think the world really realizes how close we are, in a weird way," Diesel told USA Today. "I think some things may be blown out of proportion. I don't think that was his intention. I know he appreciates how much I work this franchise. In my house, he's Uncle Dwayne."
Strife in the city
Life in the big city can be challenging and, allegedly, in the fictional version of it, too.
"Sex and the City" co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall didn't get along like their characters in the series or subsequent films made it seem. In fact, the two have had a longstanding feud with multiple ups and downs. It's hard to pinpoint the exact reason for the feud, but it's clear that the two weren't the best of friends on set. According to Cattrall, she was portrayed as "demanding or a diva" in the press. And speaking to that end, in an interview with Piers Morgan, she said: "This is really where I take to task the people from 'Sex and the City' and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker, is that I think she could have been nicer. I really think she could have been nicer. I don't know what her issue is."
Tensions escalated later when, after a death in the family, Cattrall posted a message to her Instagram directed at Parker; it read: "Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven't already.) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I'm writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your 'nice girl' persona." At the same time, Parker has maintained that she never had it out for Cattrall, saying to Elle that "I don't think anybody wants to believe that I love Kim. I adore her. I wouldn't have done the movie without her. Didn't and wouldn't."
Two-faced friendship
Although these two baddies teamed up to take down the caped crusader onscreen, Jim Carrey (The Riddler) and Tommy Lee Jones (Two-Face) weren't quite partners in crime on the set of 1995's "Batman Forever." And much of that animosity came from Jones. According to Carrey, there was one incident that spoke to Jones' feelings about him. The two happened to be sitting in the same restaurant, and Carrey decided to go over and say hello. "The blood just drained from his face, like he had been thinking about me 24 hours," Carrey said on the late Norm MacDonald's podcast.
The altercation happened right "before the biggest scene we have together in a movie and the blood just drained from his face and he started shaking," Carrey continued. "He went to hug me and said, 'I hate you. I really don't like you.' And I said, 'Gee, man, what's the problem?' And I pulled up a chair, which probably wasn't smart, and he said, 'I cannot sanction your buffoonery.'" Of course, as The Riddler, Carrey's character came with a certain amount of "buffoonery." But apparently the man behind the green, question-marked jumpsuit had a little too much silliness on-set for Jones' liking.
Nonetheless, Carrey said: "He's a phenomenal actor, though; I still love him."
Cut the tension with a 'Blade'
Ryan Reynolds famously met and fell for his now-wife, Blake Lively, while filming 2011's "Green Lantern." However, the Canadian actor hasn't always got along so swimmingly with his co-stars. Most notably, Reynolds had trouble with Wesley Snipes during the filming of 2004's "Blade: Trinity." But then again, apparently so did the entire cast and crew.
Journalist Chris Parry, who at the time was working on an article about the production of the film, spent some time on the set and spoke to crew members anonymously. One source told him this about Snipes and Reynolds' relationship: "He refers to Ryan Reynolds as 'that cracker' or 'tell that cracker to get out of my eyeline,' and 'tell that cracker to get his lines right.'" But it wasn't just Reynolds.
Snipes reportedly was difficult with everyone on set, and there have been rumors that he even at one point strangled the film's director, David Goyer. Although he never confirmed the incident, Goyer did have this to say (per The Hollywood Reporter): "I have tremendous respect for Wesley as an actor. He used to be a friend. We're not friends anymore. I don't think anyone involved in that film had a good experience; certainly, I didn't. I don't think anybody involved is happy with the results. It was a very tortured production."
Don't mess with angels
2000's "Charlie's Angels" –- a film revamp of the original late 1970s to early 1980s TV show -– was a box office hit, bolstered with a star-studded cast including Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu (as the Angels), and Bill Murray (as the pseudo-manager, Bosley). However, even Hollywood stars of that caliber experience lost their cool during production. More specifically, Liu and Murray.
There was a rewrite, as frequently happens on movies, of one scene, and Murray wasn't happy with it. For some reason, he took his frustration out on Liu –- despite her claiming not to have anything to do with the changes. Then, Murray began to "sort of hurl insults at her," and his dialogue was "was inexcusable and unacceptable," she said during an interview on the Los Angeles Times podcast, "Asian Enough." But Liu didn't back down. "I stood up for myself, and I don't regret it," she continued. "Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there's no need to condescend or to put other people down."
The two have seemingly rekindled their professional relationship, it seems, but Liu still thinks she did the right thing in standing up to Murray. "I have nothing against Bill Murray at all," she said. "I've seen him since then at an 'SNL' reunion, and he came up to me and was perfectly nice. But I'm not going to sit there and be attacked."
Where's the Christmas spirit?
Every actor has a different approach. And a lot of times, those methods can clash. Apparently, that was the case with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn while filming the 2008 holiday comedy, "Four Christmases." The two lead actors had disparate styles of working, with Vaughn coming "onto set in the morning looking like he just came in from a night out, while Reese will arrive early looking camera-ready," an inside source told the New York Daily News.
It wasn't just their personality types either; when it came down to the actual scenes, the duo had differing ideas on how to knock them out, too. "Reese tries to force Vince into blocking out each scene and running through their lines as Vince tries to convince her that he's an ad-libber and wants to play around and see where the scene goes," said the source. The tensions between the two also, allegedly, led to a sex scene being scrapped from the script. "Reese has an issue with the scripted love scene," a source told the New York Post (via Digital Spy). "It is meant to be a funny, 'American Pie'-style romp, full of bumps and laughs, but Reese is of such a prude, she thinks it's just too much."
And perhaps due to all that friction, or just a busy schedule, Vaughn never made it to the film's premiere. Ever the professional, though, Witherspoon had this to say about her absent co-star while on the red carpet: "He's the greatest."
Streep vs. Hoffman
At one time, the great Meryl Streep was a newbie in the acting world. One of her first starring roles was alongside another current veteran, Dustin Hoffman, in 1979's "Kramer vs. Kramer." And Streep claimed to the New York Times that Hoffman "overstepped" a bit while filming.
The incident happened during a scene in which Hoffman's character (Ted Kramer) slapped Streep's (Joanna Kramer). And apparently the slap was a little too real. Referring to the scene, Streep said: "This is tricky because when you're an actor, you're in a scene, you have to feel free. I'm sure that I have inadvertently hurt people in physical scenes. But there's a certain amount of forgiveness in that." Streep continued that, being her first film, it was a tough place to start her career. "But this was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me," she said. "And you see it in the movie."
For Hoffman's part, he did admit that he was difficult to work with during the production, and that his problems in his personal life affected his coworkers on set. "I was getting divorced, I'd been partying with drugs and it depleted me in every way," he said while being honored by the British Academy of Film & Television Arts in 2012. "I'm sure I was acting out on her throughout the movie. Stuff that I was feeling toward the wife that I was divorcing in real life."
Tensions of endearment
As a mother-daughter duo in 1983's "Terms of Endearment," Shirley MacLaine (who plays a widowing mother named Aurora) and Debra Winger (Aurora's daughter Emma) portrayed a fictional family with a strong bond forged through loss and love. Behind the scenes, however, the two weren't as tight. And there were rumors about how that tension manifested on set in some very strange ways. During an interview on his show, Andy Cohen detailed that Winger "tried to pass gas in her [MacLaine's] direction," and that she "licked her leg while she was filming a love scene with [Jack] Nicholson."
And while Winger didn't fully cop to the claims, she did smile and say there "was something true in there."
The two women allegedly had different styles of acting, too, which led to conflict. Winger was rebellious and provocative; MacLaine was reserved and professional. But to each her own, and despite the fighting, the duo of acting greats still hold each other in high regard –- at least professionally. "I can't deny that we fought," Winger told the New York Times. "We're not having lunch together today. We challenged ourselves, and when we got tired of challenging ourselves, we challenged each other. But I think there was always a respect between the two of us."
Marlon Brando made Sophia Loren uncomfortable
Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren are two of Hollywood's most revered stars from, what some may call, the golden age. They starred alongside each other in 1967's Charlie Chaplin-directed comedy "A Countess from Hong Kong." But according to Loren, Brando got a bit too touchy-feely with the actress, and she responded by letting him know that was not okay.
"All of a sudden, he put his hands on me," Loren explained in her autobiography, "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life." "I turned in all tranquility and blew in his face, like a cat stroked the wrong way and said, 'Don't you ever dare to do that again. Never again!'" Loren didn't back down after the incident, although it made the rest of the production uncomfortable for her. She continued: "As I pulverized him with my eyes, he seemed small, defenseless, almost a victim of his own notoriety. He never did it again, but it was very difficult working with him after that."
Singin' in the pain
The relationship at the core of "Singin' In The Rain" was not as wholesome and tender as it seemed behind the scenes. Gene Kelly's (Don Lockwood) co-star Debbie Reynolds (who plays Kathy Selden in the film) revealed that the twosome's working relationship was much more fraught than their onscreen rapport. "He came to rehearsals and criticized everything I did and never gave me a word of encouragement," Reynolds wrote in her memoir.
Reynolds continued that, when it was time to shoot the kissing scenes with Kelly, things got even more uncomfortable. "Gene took me tightly in his arms ... and shoved his tongue down my throat," she wrote. "'Eeew! What was that?' I screeched, breaking free of his grasp and spitting. I ran around frantic, yelling for some Coca-Cola to cleanse my mouth."
And to make matters a bit more awkward, there was a substantial age difference between the actors during the filming of "Singin' in the Rain." Reynolds was just 19 at the time, while Kelly was 37. "It was the early 1950s, and I was an innocent kid who had never been French-kissed," she continued. "It felt like an assault."
A feud fit for TV
The grudge match between Hollywood icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford is so legendary that it was turned into a TV show in 2017, aptly titled "Feud: Bette and Joan."
So, what was the issue? Well, a lot of things. The two reportedly fought over nearly everything including lovers, movie roles, fame, parenting, and more. And despite the quarrel lasting decades, it all came to a head when the duo starred alongside each other in 1962's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" It wasn't just a fight of words, either; things actually got physical, too. "The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in '[What Ever] Happened to Baby Jane?'" Davis once said. And in another scene, in which Davis was supposed to fake kick Crawford in the head, she actually did make contact (whether intentionally or not), and it resulted in three stitches.
But Crawford got her revenge during a scene where Davis had to pull her out of bed. Crawford secretly wore a heavy weightlifter's belt underneath her costume, knowing that Davis had a bad back.
Even when Crawford died in 1977 of a heart attack, the fight lived on. Upon hearing of her rival's passing, Davis allegedly said: "You should never say bad things about the dead, only good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good."
Discord amongst the droids
Throughout the "Star Wars" saga, two of the most enduring and beloved characters in all the galaxy aren't even human. Droids R2-D2 and C-3PO bring comic relief, wisdom, and — surprisingly — humanity to the films. They're also somewhat of a dynamic duo, like a married couple, bickering at times but always by each other's side. But the actors who donned the android outfits weren't as close as their onscreen bond made it seem. Kenny Baker (who played R2-D2) has publicly said that his co-star Anthony Daniels (C-3P0) disrespected him on-set, calling him names like "piece of s–t" and "little man."
Daniels responded to the claims, telling his side of the story in 2019 to the Daily Express: "Kenny decided that he wanted to say unkind, unpleasant, rude, hurtful things. It got worse and worse." When the suits came on, it was all business. "The fact is we didn't really appear or interact together," continued Daniels. "He was in a box he couldn't do anything with. He couldn't hear me. He never made a sound."