Cinema SOULMATES
Going to the cinema gives us viewers the chance to switch off — to sit in a movie theatre for two-plus hours and simply enjoy the acting masterclass (we hope!) in front of us. And when it comes to certain cinematic duos, we know we’re in for a treat when they’re both on the billing.
Stars that go together like egg and soldiers, cheese and crackers, Chic magazine and your weekend cup of coffee!
This week we’re taking a look at the couples who have such great onscreen chemistry, directors just keep casting them together...
There is no better onscreen couple than Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. Whether you like their movies or loathe them, there’s no denying that this movie couple are a perfect pairing.
The longtime friends have made three movies together throughtout their respective careers, beginning with The Wedding Singer way back in 1998.
The movie follows Robbie Hart, a wedding singer in Ridge eld, New Jersey in 1985, whose own wedding to his ancee Linda is approaching.
He meets and befriends Julia Sullivan, a new waitress at the reception hall where he works, and promises to sing at her wedding, though her ance, businessman and bond investor Glenn Gulia, has yet to set a date.
On Robbie’s wedding day, his sister
Kate informs him as he waits at the altar that Linda has changed her mind about the wedding, leaving him humiliated and emotionally devastated.
Robbie sinks into depression, causing his friends and family to be concerned as he gives up wedding singing.
However, Julia convinces him to help her with the planning of her wedding and their friendship blossoms until the pair become increasingly confused by their deepening feelings for each other.
Following the success of The Wedding Singer (the lm had a budget of $18 million and made $123.3 million worldwide in ticket sales), Barrymore and Sandler made 50 First Dates.
This romcom saw Henry Roth, a marine veterinarian at Sea Life Park Hawaii on Oahu, date tourists to avoid any serious commitments.
One day, Henry encounters Lucy and they instantly connect over breakfast, with Lucy offering to meet him again for breakfast the next morning.
The next day, however,
Lucy shows no recollection of ever having met him. The restaurant owner Sue explains to Henry that the year before, Lucy and her father Marlin were in a car accident which resulted in Lucy being diagnosed with anterograde amnesia, whereby she remembers everything up until the night before the accident; although her memory functions normally during the day, her daily experiences are lost when she goes to sleep.
To spare her from horri cally reliving the accident, Marlin and Doug, Lucy’s steroid-addicted brother, re-enact the same day over and over again for Lucy.
Despite Sue’s warning, Henry attempts to get Lucy to have breakfast with him several times.
One day, Lucy notices a police officer writing a ticket because of her expired license plates. With the ruse exposed, she is distressed to learn that her friends and family have maintained the charade for so long. However, while analysing her reaction, Henry surmises that her strongest reactions are to feeling betrayed by her loved ones, rather than the actual memory loss.
He devises a new strategy to let her know about the truth by creating a video with her friends to explain the situation calmly; rather than allowing her pre-accident routine to continue, they plant the video in her room with a note to play it upon awakening. The strategy succeeds, allowing Lucy to process the events of the video and simultaneously be updated on current events, including her relationship with Henry.
The last movie the pair made together was Blended in 2014 which sees Jim and Lauren, after a terrible blind date, nding themselves stranded at a resort together with their respective children.
These stars make sweet movies when they come together… By Rachel Beresford
However, the two soon start developing feelings for each other.
Another couple who always seem to come together onscreen is Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper — and to much success also.
They rst starred together in 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook.
After being released from a mental institution, Pat (Cooper) meets Tiffany (Lawrence), who suffers from depression.
She tells him that she will help him reunite with his wife if he becomes her partner in a competition.
The movie saw Lawrence pick up the
Oscar for Best Actress in 2013 as well as that year’s Golden Globe.
And of that movie, Jennifer said Bradley was one of the actors who made her feel most comfortable on set.
She added that her chemistry with Cooper was impeccable in the lm, and that’s probably because of their off-screen bonding.
“He’s respectful, not gross. Not one of those Hollywood guys who are like, ‘Oh, I can sleep with anybody I want’,”she said.
“That helps. It means that when it comes to the romantic stuff, you don’t freak out.”
Just a year later the pair were seen together in the crime/comedy caper American Hustle.
In 1978, Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser work together as con artists. Sydney, posing as English aristocrat Lady Edith Greensly, has improved the scams.
Irving loves Sydney but is unwilling to leave his unstable, histrionic wife Rosalyn, fearing he will lose contact with adopted son Danny. Rosalyn has also threatened to report Irving to the police if he leaves her.
Both Cooper and Lawrence received Best Supporting Actor nominations for their roles but ultimately left that year’s Oscars empty-handed.
The pair’s next two lms came in quick succession, with Serena in 2014 and Joy in 2015.
Serena was based on the 2008 novel of the same name by American author Ron Rash, with Lawrence and Cooper playing newlyweds running a timber business in 1930’s North Carolina.
Though the movie starred the incredible acting duo, it was a bit of a op (by their standards) at the box office, taking in just €5 million.
Joy came along in 2015 and has been one of Lawrence’s most successful movies to date, taking in over €100 million at the box office.
In 1990, Joy Mangano (Lawrence), an airline booking agent residing in Peconic, Newyork, struggles nancially while juggling a complicated family life.
Joy’s best friend, Jackie, encourages Joy to pursue her inventing ambitions. Frustrated when using a conventional mop, she designs and builds an innovative self-wringing type, with Trudy, a wealthy Italian widow, agreeing to invest in Joy’s product.
Joy soon meets QVC executive Neil Walker (Cooper), who agrees to sell her mops on TV.
She also becomes a successful independent businesswoman who sponsors other inventors.
Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress again at the Oscars, ultimately losing out, but she did pick up the Golden Globe.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are another pair who frequently star together and their pairing even took them all the way to the Oscars.
Their rst movie together was 2011’s Crazy, Stupid, Love which also starred Steve Carell as Cal Weaver — a middle-aged man whose wife Emily asks for a divorce after she reveals an affair she had with co-worker David Lindhagen.
After moving into his own apartment, Cal begins frequenting an upscale bar, talking loudly about his divorce. He eventually attracts the attention of a young man named Jacob Palmer, a womaniser who beds different women each night but was recently rejected by a law school graduate named Hannah.
He takes pity on Cal and offers to teach him how to pick up women.
However, eventually, Cal and Emily reunite at their 13-year-old son Robbie’s parent-teacher conference... and a surprise lies in store for Jacob.
The movie raked in €145 million at the box office with a slew of award nominations for Gosling.
In 2013, the pair starred together again in Gangster Squad, following a secret crew of LAPD who come together under the leadership of John, a former World War II soldier, to tear down the world of one of the most dangerous gangsters, Mickey Cohen, who runs the city.
The biggest success for Gosling and Stone came in 2016, though, when they starred in romantic musical drama La La Land.
It stars Gosling as a struggling jazz pianist and Stone as an aspiring actress who meet and fall in love while pursuing their dreams in Los Angeles.
The movie grossed $447 million worldwide on a budget of just $30 million and Stone picked up the Best Actress gong at the Oscars. Still, despite the incredible success of that movie, there is still a scene that haunts Gosling.
He told Deadline,“there’s a moment that haunts me where we’re dancing, Emma and I. I didn’t know this would become the poster for the movie.”
He explained that in the scene, Stone’s hands were supposed to be pointed up in the air. He decided to have his hand attened instead of pointing skyward, despite being advised, ‘It wasn’t cool’.
“Now when I look at it and I have to see it all the time, you know what would have been cooler than this?,”he said, re-creating the way he held his hand.“that (gesturing with his hand pointed up).”
“It’s just a lazy,”he added.“i call it ‘La La Hand’.”
I guess even Hollywood stars have their insecurities...
There are few A-list pairings who have starred together more than Julia Roberts and George Clooney who were rst seen together on screen all the way back in 2001’s Ocean’s 11, as well as the sequels, Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13 in 2004 and 2007, respectively.
The pair also starred in 2002’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind where Chuck Barris is forced by CIA agent Jim Byrd to work as an assassin.
However, when he later becomes a famous television presenter, he must conceal his true identity.
They reunited in 2013 for August: Osage County, which followed the lives of three sisters who change drastically when their father drowns and everyone comes together at the family home for the funeral, after which they spend time with their dysfunctional mother.
Money Monster came along in 2016 with Clooney playing nancial expert Lee Gates who hosts a show where he gives advice on investments.
During a shoot, an angry Kyle, who has lost money after investing in a company backed by Gates, takes him hostage with his producer (Roberts) forced to nd a way out for everyone.
The pair’s latest movie was 2022 Net ix hit, Ticket To Paradise, which saw them play divorced parents, pushed back together at the wedding of their daughter in Bali.