8 Celebrity Couples Who Met While Acting in the Same Movie

by Erin Dohony

Ben Stiller & Christine Taylor – Zoolander

Crediting their initial meeting and happy marriage to co-starring roles in the 2001 film, Zoolander, what’s Ben and Christine’s secret to a good relationship? “Have fun on set” they say, “We are very blessed have acted together in such great movies.” They also appear together in Tropic Thunder, Arrested Development, and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. 

Anna Faris & Chris Pratt – Take Me Home Tonight

First appearing together in Take Me Home Tonight, Chris and Anna met at the table-read of the film in 2007. Something about that movie title sure planted an idea or two! The comedy power-couple married in 2009 and they have one son, Jack. 

Sally Field & Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump

What’s that sound you hear? Oh, just Freud spinning in his grave! Tom Hanks and Sally Field were first introduced when cast as mother and son in the 1994 classic, Forrest Gump. Their relationship was initially a discreet matter, but they went public when Hanks proposed to Field in 1998. Talk about love crossing all boundaries! The pair has enjoyed over 15 years of wedded bliss. 

Will Smith & Jeff Goldblum – Independence Day

Didn’t see this one coming, did you? Many people don’t know that the Independence Day co-stars began dating shortly after the 1996 epic wrapped filming. “We kept it secret for so long because the public would judge us and our careers might have been over” Smith said in a 2014 People interview, “But now we can be true to ourselves. That means the world to Jeff and I.” While not working, the couple resides on their ranch in southern California. 

Drew Barrymore & Pineapple Prop – 50 First Dates

“Trevor and I met in an elevator going to the 50 First Dates callbacks in 2002. He held the door while I was running to catch it, and that stood out to me right away. What a great pineapple.” Barrymore received some critical feedback when she and the tropical fruit made their courtship public. “No one tells you who or what kind of fruit to love. We’ve been together over 10 years now. I wouldn’t change a thing.” 

Nicolas Cage & Sean Bean – National Treasure

Wait really? Ok, our editor just kind of threw this one our way. Wikipedia is telling us it’s true. Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean first met while filming National Treasure in 2003. Despite their characters’ butting of heads, the actors couldn’t help the butting of hearts once the project ended. “Sean and I both came from long careers in a tough environment. Hollywood can really wear you down,” Cage was quoted in a 2014 red carpet interview, “He’s my real national treasure.” The two were married in New York in March of 2015.

Julia Roberts & Black Beret – Mona Lisa Smile

First introduced in 2002 on the set of Mona Lisa Smile, Roberts and her accessory-life-partner Shane had only one short scene together. “I was in my trailer when Shane came by and asked if I would like to go out sometime. I thought to myself ‘that is one confident hat!’ and the rest is history. People ask me why I wouldn’t marry a person, an actual human being. If I had chosen that path, Shane and I wouldn’t have been able to adopt and have our beautiful family of knit caps and berets!”

Bradley Cooper and Diner Booth Seat – Silver Linings Playbook

“I wouldn’t have been able to handle fame if not for the grounded mindset and difficult mobility that Gwen offers me.” Cooper says of his wife of 2 years, Gwen the Llanerch Diner Booth Seat. The lovebirds met while Brad was on location filming Silver Linings Playbook in 2011. “I didn’t know what it was when I sat down for that first take. All my stress melted away when that cold, laminated furniture hit my back. I knew that this was the diner booth who would change my life for the better.” 

Erin Dohony is a writer and stand up comedian in Philadelphia. When she's not telling jokes for discount tacos, she hangs out in dog parks hoping no one realizes that she didn't actually bring a pet.

Jonathan Franzen Air Quotes What’s Hot Right Now

by Kerreanna DiMauro

The Revenant, with its characters who eat animals, wear animals and are threatened by accidents, diseases, tribes and wars, shows us the real “world.” The whole film looks like it was shot in numbing cold, which is my favorite season. I have it on good authority that, despite Bigfoot-and-Jack-from-Titanic erotic fanfic, Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio was not “raped” by a “bear” in the course of the film.

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The movie, Carol takes place in the early 1950s when love between “two” women—wait, women are in this film? Whoa, mind blown.

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Mad Max: Fury Road is all speeding, chasing, bouncing and exploding with literal blood bags, maniacal rulers and geriatric biker “chicks.” Most of the leads are played by supermodels; each one thin and pale as to be almost transparent and looks as if she’ll die in a photogenic way, which is petite bourgeoisie. This movie tries to pedal a “purely feminist” agenda. Interesting how the movie gets labeled a Feminist Film, but still needs a man’s name in the title to garner attention. Now, I don’t know if Fury Road is a street in Camden, New Jersey or how your eyes bleed after an excruciating 50-page flashback. “Can” an intellectual please advise? “Thanks.”

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Adele’s album, 25, is effective pop entertainment that relies on “emotional” sludge. To no one’s surprise, the new album references the singer’s past relationships and the whimsical farrago of psycho-melodramas that she alone has created. Oh great, she’s had boyfriends. Meh. Enough already. We get it, Adelaide. Where’s the Male Dominance? Where’s the word “pussy”? I’m not “very into” nostalgia, probably because I’ve been a 75-year-old morose-looking rocking chair and “smug stepfather-type” since the “day” I was “born.”

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Billy on the Street tells the “tale” of every striving American underdog. One man politely shines a flashlight on a group of refugees armed with a knife and offers each selfie-happy refugee a hot meal and a dollar as they stroll down a cobblestoned lane in “Rhode Island.” Apart from the host’s very, very weird Boston accent, it’s serious LITERATURE.

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The Irish Broadway musical about Alexander Hamilton called (oddly), Hamilton, contains patriotism and music you can dance to. Show folk have told me this. I’ve never danced. The Obamas loved it. See it, I guess? Anyway, carry on.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton: I don’t care for “her” privileged family, “her” looks, “her” too few women friends, “her” too many famous male friends, “her” money, “her” sexual ignorance, “her” charmlessness, and “her” methods of travel. Just thinking about “her” makes me sleepless. I hasten to add that this is a review of Edith Wharton. I “apologize” for any confusion.

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Hoverboards: they’re a hot commodity—so hot that they keep catching on fire. Are they merch from The Hunger Games trilogy? Oh “god.” And those books were written by a woman, right? Forget reading. Train your “hover legs,” glide your hoverboard into a jewelry store, do a board-balancing pirouette, perform origami for the security guard and then cruise out of the store. The trick is to make it appear that you’ve floated in there for a slick heist, but, of course, you don’t steal. Stealing is bad. But “female” aspiring writers are worse.

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The popular Netflix documentary series, Making a Murderer, is sure to ignite your sense of outrage. If “real-life” injustice is what you crave, simply scroll through the sad ravings of Franzen parody Twitter accounts accusing me of being a “birding curmudgeon.” I’ve kissed a bird on the mouth. So what. I consider “outdoor cats” to be evil. So? I currently use an old-fashioned flip phone made out of bamboo that doesn’t have an internet connection. What? Edit your Twitterverses about me three times a day. I don’t care. Hecklers aboard the Franzenny snark machine don’t matter. Oh look, dopey digital dilettantes are trying to make sense of the world, “but” can only handle a superficial understanding. You think of retweets as opinion and 140 characters as a delicious smack down. I just pictured all of you cracking yourselves up in front of the typewriter. Pathetic. I can and do bewail the flawed technology. This gently satirical documentary is certainly a benchmark of some sort. Namely, it reminds me that I don’t “have” Netflix.

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Kerreanna DiMauro is a writer and screenwriter based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her work has appeared on websites like McSweeney's, FrostedTip, and Points in Case. She sleep-tweets @100HungryMuses with an emphasis in dream sports and fantasy books.

Nobody Showed Up to My Mexican Standoff

by Jon Plester

Typical! This is so typical! This sort of crap always happens to me. Is it because I’m a pushover, or is it because I’m such a people-pleaser that I have these very palpable perceptual blinders on? I put in all the effort, all the time organizing and planning and comparing schedules, and then this bullshit happens. I want to know why don’t other members of the most heavily armed criminal syndicates respect me? Is it because of my delicate constitution?

I went to great lengths to plan this very elaborate Mexican standoff and then neither of those jagoffs show up. It’s so infuriating!

You know it takes a lot for someone to put themselves out there like this, to be vulnerable like this with other people. Remember inviting your whole class to your birthday party when you were 13 years old, and nobody showed up? Well, that situation is completely synonymous to this situation, except your classmates are some of the meanest, cruelest assassins in the criminal world instead of being the meanest, cruelest emotional assassins in Thomas R. Grover Middle School. And instead of being worried about them tearing through your psyche with insults like “delicate boy” and “moist hands”, they’ll stab you with a big knife and murder you. I’m not sure which is worse.

Not to mention all the effort put into the planning the damn thing. Weeks it was! Weeks it took! The lengths I went to make sure that everything about this Mexican standoff, down to the very last detail, would impress world-renowned assassin Giovanni Lorenzo and the evil Dr. Takinowa. Do you know how hard it is to rent out the top level of a parking garage in a bustling city? Extraordinarily. It’s extraordinarily hard. People want to park there, and we’re making it so they can’t do that thing. And then they get mad and honk with their car horns. Their car horns are loud and it frightens me a great deal.

I’m so ticked off. I went to a lot of effort to make sure that we had everything we needed there. Just in case someone didn’t have two guns — because people need two guns to participate in a Mexican standoff — I stashed some spares around the parking garage ahead of time. Those were my own personal illegally bought guns that I spent illegal drug money to buy, my own personal illegal drug money. That is what I used to buy what I did for the thing. And I’m upset about it.

You know, Dr. Takinowa always does this sort of thing. I really should’ve known better. Like the time he said he was going to return my cousin unharmed, then sent me his severed head in a box. How inconsiderate can one guy be. But I keep making the same mistakes because I’m an idiot, a big dumb idiot. He’s equally as evil when it comes to honoring commitments as he is when it comes to viciously murdering family members — just a real savage.

I bought new clothes. I don’t know why, I just thought it would make me feel more confident in myself. I got this new, and very expensive, badass leather jacket that the saleswoman said made me look like “a real rough and tough son of a gun”, and boy was I beaming when she said that. I trusted Donna’s judge of character, as she had a very maternal disposition and I respond extraordinarily well to that sort of behavior. I thought Dr. Takinowa would really take to it, as well as Giovanni Lorenzeo, and that they would respect me for putting effort into my appearance for the dramatic standoff. I ended up getting so mad that they didn’t show up that I threw my jacket against the wall. Except I forgot I was on top of a parking garage and the jacket went flying off the roof and into the street below, falling into the back seat of a drop top convertible and driving off into the distance. I spent the rest of my personal illegal drug money on that jacket.

So here I stand, alone and cold on top of a parking garage, with more than enough guns but no adversaries to be seen. I’m very lonely. I just want respect, and that seems to be the one thing that illegal drug money can’t buy. I miss my jacket. I only hope that due to serendipity, Dr. Takinowa or Giovanni Lorenzo happen to see that convertible man and his new leather jacket, and they think to themselves “Boy, I’d really love to have a gun pointed at that guy’s face while some other guy points a gun at my face.” That would be a dream.

Jon Plester is a writer, improviser, filmmaker, and all-around bad boy from Philadelphia. 

Stand Back, Doors Closing

by Jon Wolper

Stand back, this train’s doors are closing. Passengers, stand back, the doors are going to close. Please move as far away from the doors as physically possible. This is imperative; I have lost control of the doors. They went rogue on Wednesday. These doors do not care. They will close on you. They will close through you. They will gut you from your ears to your ankles and then repeatedly open and close on your spilling intestines like you were a rush-hour snack.

If there is no room on the train, you can stand on the platform, as there is another train directly behind us. There is also a train in front of us, and a train below us, which is part of a separate line entirely, which is information that has no bearing on this train in particular, but I thought you should know that our subway system has several lines because we pride ourselves on offering convenient travel options. There is also a train above us, in the metaphysical sense.

Passengers, please be advised that we will remain on the platform for several minutes, as the train in front of us is experiencing mechanical problems. If you see a fire, you’re wrong. You don’t see a fire. Those are mechanical problems. Please move to the center of the car, as the train in front of us will be offloading its passengers, and those passengers will walk back through the tunnel and board this train. Please allow every one of them to board, because they all have been inconvenienced. Please accept these passengers with open arms. Literally embrace them, if you have to, so we can maximize the number of people on this train.

They should be on their way. Stand back, doors closing. Just kidding. Doors remaining open for the foreseeable future. Again, just kidding. Who knows with these doors? I can just say it over and over. It’s whatever.

Stand back, doors opening.

Stand back, doors closing.

Customers, the doors are refusing to close, so we will offload this train if they continue to-- OK, now you’ve gone and done it. Christ. This train is out of service. Please return to the platform, and think about what you’ve done. The passengers from the train up ahead will be here soon, and they’re going to be super disappointed in you guys. I’ve just received word that the train behind us has offloaded as well, and those passengers will also be joining you on the platform. You will see them come out of the tunnel, their eyes alight with hope, and then you’ll see that hope extinguished as they realize that you fucked up their travel plans. The passengers on the train below us would give you all the middle finger, but they can’t because none of them can move their arms from their sides. 

In fact, if everyone could just leave the station, that would be great. Keep in mind, though, that all turnstiles are down for repair. The platform is crumbling under your weight. We built this subway system in the middle of a sinkhole, so if you fall through the platform, you’ll fall for a very long time. There might be a way out of here through that sinkhole, actually. The doors are closing up here, but maybe they’re opening down there.

Jon Wolper is a writer based in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in websites like McSweeney's and Splitsider. He tweets infrequently.

Your Armed Militia Can Take Over Whatever It Wants, But Mine Is Taking Over Denny's

It's a tough time in America these days. A lot of folks are angry. Some folks are even loading up on all the guns they can muster and occupying federal buildings via threats of force. That's their constitutional right to a violent uprising, and I support them one hundred percent just like our Founding Fathers intended. But my armed militia is heading for one place and one place only: Denny's.

When I first suggested that our armed militia take over Denny's, I was met with resistance. A lot of my guys wanted to take over a building of more political importance, like a post office or swim and racket club. I explained, however, that Denny's is the lynchpin of the community. This isn't some snobby places for snobs that no one goes to, like a voting booth or a public high school. Everyone who's anyone eats at Denny's at least twice a week. Plus, they serve breakfast all day and the food fucking rules.

We've been occupying Denny's for 72 hours and it's been without a doubt the most fun time of my life. While other militias are stuck committing unprecedented acts of domestic terrorism under the aegis of white privilege, we've been having a blast chowing down on meat lover's omelets and authentic Brooklyn spaghetti and meatballs. And everyone at Denny's has been super supportive. Our waitress, Lucy, has kept our bottomless mugs full of piping hot coffee. You know we're leaving her a big ol' wad of bills. Craig the manager even bought us all Sante Fe skillet. Do you think those fuckers in that wildlife building in Oregon got free crumbled chorizo sausage, fire-roasted bell peppers and onions, mushrooms and seasoned red-skinned potatoes, topped with cheddar cheese and two, count 'em, two, farm-fresh eggs? Hell no. They're playing Gin Rummy looking at pictures of dead birds or some shit. Meanwhile, we're coloring on our free place-mats. I drew a family of ducks. What'd you ever make?

Now, we're not some crazy extremist group. I know not everybody agrees with what we're doing, and we're totally open to different points of views and expanding our horizons. Did you know, for example, that the Alaska Salmon and Tilapia Ranchero are delicious? I'd normally never get that at a Denny's. But these are the kind of things you learn when you're sitting in a booth for 72 hours.

Of course, it's not all Grand Slams and roses. There have been a couple of violent deaths. Chuck shot himself with his .357 magnum when he was trying to shoot open a packet of mixed berry jam. I told him to put down the firearm and use two hands to firmly grab the packaging, but Chuck was never the one to listen when his stomach was growling. We lost Rodney when we open fired on his booth. We could have sworn he was reaching for his gun. Turns out he was digging for a coupon for the Fantastic Four Dr. Doom chocolate lava cake. Fucker didn't even know that the exclusive Fantastic Four menu was removed months ago. Such a senseless tragedy. The Thing Burger with special Thing sauce was gone too soon.

I'll be the first to admit that whatever half-baked statement we were trying to make about state's rights has gotten swept under the rug in favor of good grub and family friendly ambiance. Maybe we should have occupied that TGI Friday's or that really run-down Friendly's off Route 1. But when you want home-cooked quality food at fast-food prices, there's only one door you can kick down, assault rifles pointed at the hostess, screaming incoherent bullshit about Nancy Pelosi. And that's Denny's, baby.