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6 Onscreen Duos Who Hated Working Together

They may have had chemistry but these actors did not get along behind the scenes.

When you're watching your favorite movie or tv show, you usually would hope that the actors playing your favorite characters get along just as well as they do onscreen. But of course, in the real world, that's not the case. Whether caused by opposite personalities or a breakup off-screen, read on to see the drama that unfolded behind the cameras for these six iconic duos.

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1
Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley

Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley in a scene from Vampire Diaries.
CBS

Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley starred in the hit series Vampire Diaries as onscreen lovers, but it wasn't quite like that on set—at least in the beginning.

On the podcast, Directionally Challenged, Dobrev talked about her experience with Vampire Diaries and her rocky relationship with Wesley. "Paul and I didn't get along at the beginning of the show. I respected Paul Wesley, I didn't like Paul Wesley," she said. "We despised each other so much, that it read as love. We really just didn't get along the first maybe five months of shooting."

Luckily, that's all in the past now as they are extremely good friends now and see each other every once in a while to catch up.

2
Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray

Brooke Davis and Lucas kissing.
The CW

Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray met on the set of the first season of One Tree Hill. They immediately hit it off and even got married a year and a half later. Unfortunately, the marriage lasted only five months and the pair separated.

But this separation didn't keep mean they got to move on with their lives and stop seeing each other: They had to continue acting along side each other on One Tree Hill for four more years until  it ended after season nine.

During an episode of the podcast, Drama Queens titled Clothes Over Bros, Bush and her fellow One Tree Hill co-stars, Bethany Joy Lenz and Hilarie Burton talked about this emotional time in Bush's life.

"You were going through a breakup with the person that you were playing a romance opposite of," Lenz said to Bush. "And regardless of what all those circumstances were, that's incredibly difficult—emotionally to be able to be vulnerable and be there in that moment,"

Bush replied, "People can call it whatever they want. They can say it's strength, they can say it's pride, they can say its professionalism. You can put a positive or a negative skew on it."

She then goes on to say that all that mattered to her was being true to Brooke Davis. "But I was always going to put Brooke Davis ahead of everybody and everything else. Nothing mattered to me but being honest for her."

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3
Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in the Notebook.
New Line Cinema

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling starred in one of the most famous romance movies of all time, but their offscreen chemistry was passionate in the worst way.

As reported by Daily Mail, the director Nick Cassavetes told VH-1 that Gosling and McAdams would have screaming matches on set. "Maybe I'm not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not," said Cassevetes.

Cassevetes goes on to say that on set one day, "Ryan came to me, and there's 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, 'Nick come here. 'And he's doing a scene with Rachel and he says, 'Would you take her out of here and bring in another actress to read off camera with me?'" Cassevetes continued, "I said, 'What?' Then he says, 'I can't. I can't do it with her. I'm just not getting anything from this.'"

After an intense therapy session that Cassevetes demanded McAdams and Gosling have, he told VH-1, "The rest of the film wasn't smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing."

Ironically, McAdams and Gosling dated for four and a half years after filming, but spilt for good in 2008.

4
Leighton Meester and Blake Lively

Blair and Serena in Gossip Girl looking at a phone.
The CW

Leighton Meester and Blake Lively played best friends forever in the hit series, Gossip Girl, but their differences in personalities made them not so friendly in real life.

"Blake and Leighton were not friends," executive producer, Joshua Safran, told Vanity Fair. "They were friendly, but they were not friends like Serena and Blair. Yet the second they'd be on set together, it's as if they were."

He continued, "You talk to Blake on a very contemporary level, and she would be like, 'I'm doing this thing tonight. Have you been to this restaurant?" Meester on the opposite end "was very removed and very quiet, and, after her scenes were done, she would wander the stage."

To make things more dramatic, a source once told the New York Daily News, "Leighton Meester and Blake Lively avoid each other like the plague while castmates choose sides." It was also reported by Harper's Bazaar that Meester thought Lively was an "egomaniac" and that Lively was upset that Meester had a hire wardrobe budget.

5
Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall

Kim Cattral and Sarah Jessica Parker on set
Photo by Tom Kingston/WireImage/ Getty Images

Sex and The City dishes out a ton of drama onscreen, but one of the most famous feuds to date is actually offscreen. Two of the leading ladies, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall, have had rumors swirling about their relationship for years but the public didn't have much concrete evidence until 2018.

When Cattrall's brother tragically passed away, Parker reached out to her via Instagram sharing her condolences. Cattralls' response sent Sex and the City fans in an immediate frenzy. She wrote in a Instagram post,"I don't need your love or support at this tragic time @sarahjessicaparker." She then proceeded to write in the caption, "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."

But the feud doesn't end there. According to USA Today, Parker told the Award's Chatter Podcast that it's is very complicated. When asked why Cattrall was not part of the Sex and the City reboot, Parker replied, "We did not ask her to be part of this ('And Just Like That…') because she made it clear that that wasn't something she wanted to pursue, and it no longer felt comfortable for us."

She goes on to say, "That's not 'slamming' her, it's just learning. You've got to listen to somebody, and if they're publicly talking about something and it doesn't suggest it's some place they want to be, or a person they want to play, or an environment in which they want to be, you get to an age where you're like, 'Well, we hear that.'"

READ THIS NEXT: 6 90's Movies That Would Never Be Made Today.

6
Patrick Swayze  and Jennifer Grey

Water Scene in Dirty Dancing.
Photo by /Getty Images

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey appeared to have some steamy chemistry in the movie, Dirty Dancing, but it wasn't the case behind the scenes. While most of us would have been wooed by Swayze, Grey was not having it.

"The same way Baby and Johnny were not supposed to be together … a natural match, right? And we weren't a natural match," Grey told PEOPLE. "And the fact that we needed to be a natural match created a tension. Because normally when someone's not a natural, both people move on, but we were forced to be together. And our being forced to be together created a kind of a synergy, or like a friction."

Swayze died of pancreatic cancer in 2009 and according to Chicago Sun Times, Grey wrote about what she wishes she could have said to him in her memoir, Out of the Corner. She wrote, "I would say, 'I'm so sorry that I couldn't just appreciate and luxuriate in who you were, instead of me wishing you were more like what I wanted you to be."

Lauren Jarvis-Gibson
Lauren Jarvis-Gibson is an Associate Editor at Best Life. Her work has been published in Teen Vogue, Allure, HuffPost, and more. Read more
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