Today, I read on the CNN.com web site that actress Penelope Cruz and actor Matthew McConaughey have decided to split after almost two years of dating. The two met on the set of the film Sahara. This was not too long after Cruz broke up with Tom Cruise. She and Cruise dated for almost three years after they met on the set of the film Vanilla Sky.
Hookups between actors on a set are nothing new, but they have been big news recently. There was of course, the most famous of all recently hookups – that of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, shortly followed by that of Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. Is it always a good thing? Depends on which point of view you take. Some directors hate when their co-stars hookup. It almost always overshadows the film itself. Take 2000’s Proof of Life. I personally like this movie. It has action, it has drama, it has romance…it had Russell Crowe looking good. But, the off screen romance between Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan seemed to doom the success of the film. The film made only $10 million its opening weekend and director Tayor Hackford all but blamed the actors romance on the poor box office results. However, despite the rumors of a romance between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith did very, very well at the box office.
Regardless of how the directors feel, actors still fall in love on the set. Maybe it is the small bubble they seem to live in that makes love easier when they find someone else who understands the hardships of acting. Maybe it is a case of life imitating art. Or maybe, it is just the case of two beautiful people falling in love.
Does it always fail? Well, in the cases of Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton (Cleopatra), Brad Pitt & Juliette Lewis (NBC movie Too Young to Die?), Kiefer Sutherland and Julia Roberts (Flatliners), and Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (Days of Thunder), the answer is yes. However, many on set hookups are still going strong. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward met while starring in the New York production of Picnic and have been married for 48 years. Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan on the set of the television show “Family Ties” and celebrate 18 years of marriage this year. Even the marriage everyone said wouldn’t last – that of Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith who fell in love on the set of 1995’s Too Much – has lasted for what is considered a lifetime by Hollywood standards – 10 years.
As long as there are actresses and actors starring in films together, their will be love on the set. Whether it will last after the final scene is shot is questionable, but they will keep trying!