7 Actors Who Admit They Didn’t Have Romantic Chemistry With Their Costars

Find out what these celebrities said about their costars…

Sharon Stone admits she didn’t have great chemistry with her Silver costar Billy Baldwin. Looking back, Sharon says she had a list of actors she wanted to hire as her romantic interest but producers wouldn’t listen to her. Instead they cast Billy, whom she says didn’t have the talent for the part. It quickly became clear that the pair didn’t have chemistry so one producer suggested that the actors sleep together in real life to forge a bond between them -- which Sharon turned down. 

“He’s running around his office in his sunglasses, explaining to me…I should sleep with Billy Baldwin, because if I slept with Billy Baldwin, Billy Baldwin’s performance would get better. And we needed Billy to get better in the movie, because that was the problem,” Sharon said on the Louis Theroux Podcast.

She continued, “If I could sleep with Billy, then we would have chemistry onscreen, and if I would just have sex with him then that would save the movie…And the real problem in the movie was me because I was so uptight, and so not like a real actress, who could just f--- him and get things back on track.”

Jennifer Aniston and Jay Mohr were co-stars in their 1997 flick Picture Perfect but things apparently weren’t picture perfect off screen. In an interview Jay once alluded that Jennifer wasn’t very kind to him on the set of the movie and it made things tough when they were acting. 

“Being on the set of a movie where the leading woman was unhappy with my presence and made it clear from day one. I hadn’t done that many movies, and even though they screen-tested some pretty famous guys, I somehow snaked into the leading role. The actress said, ‘No way! You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Loudly. Between takes. To other actors on set. I would literally go to my mom’s house and cry,” Jay told Elle.

Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte starred in I Love Trouble and there definitely was some trouble on set. After filming, Julia confessed that there was a rift between the actors that began when they met for the first time, impacting their on screen relationship. 

“From the moment I met him we sort of gave each other a hard time, and naturally we get on each other’s nerves,” she told The New York Times, adding that while he could be “completely charming and very nice, he’s also completely disgusting. He’s going to hate me for saying this, but he seems to go out of his way to repel people.”

While Nick reportedly said Julia was not a nice person, she later admitted that she has come to understand that she used to be a “selfish brat” on sets.

Dirty Dancing costars Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey already had tension between them before they started filming the 1987 movie. Although Patrick did end up apologizing to Jennifer for his prior behavior on the set of their film Red Dawn, the chemistry between them was still strained and they butt heads while working on set. 

“The sexual chemistry between Baby and Johnny was everything, and I was not feeling it. How was I supposed to trust this guy?” she wrote in her memoir, Out of the Corner. “I couldn’t help but sense Patrick’s impatience with me in rehearsals. It freaked me out to feel I’d finally gotten it with Kenny [Ortega, the film’s choreographer] and was ready to go, only to find out that with Patrick, I didn't have it at all. The tension between us fed a certain real-life struggle and energy into the movie.”

Richard Gere and Debra Winger admittedly didn’t have chemistry on the set of An Officer and a Gentleman. In fact, Debra once compared acting with Richard to “a brick wall.” While rumors have swirled about their tension through the years, Debra said in 2018 that most of their poor relationship had to do with “bad men running the show.” Things between the former costars have now improved and Debra admits she could have been kinder with her comments. 

“I probably could have come up with something nicer,” she told The Telegraph. “[When] I run into him he says, ‘Are you still saying those things about me?’”

Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley may be close friends now but it wasn’t always that way. Both Nina and Paul have admitted that they really didn’t like each other when Vampire Diaries began filming. Although they didn’t have chemistry on set, Nina admits it ended up translating well on screen because their hatred looked more like passion. 

“Paul and I didn’t get along at the beginning of the show. I respected Paul Wesley, I didn’t like Paul Wesley...Everyone thought that we had such good chemistry. I realize now that there’s a fine line between love and hate and we despised each other so much that it read as love but...we really just didn’t get along the first five months of shooting,” Nina said on the Directionally Challenged podcast. 

Paul later agreed, explaining, “We totally clashed [the] first couple years in terms of just getting on each other’s nerves...I think sometimes when people work together nonstop, do press nonstop for years and years on end, you’re just -- you don’t appreciate the person that’s in front of you. You’re like, ‘Oh, you know, I’m exhausted and tired.’ And I think now, it’s such a nice sort of story because we're such good friends now.”

Geena Davis worked with Bill Murray on their film Quick Change and while they were in a relationship on screen, things were tense when the camera wasn’t rolling. In fact, Geena believes she should have walked away from the film from the very beginning. In her memoir, she explained that she began feeling uncomfortable around Bill during the audition process when he “insisted” she use a massage device called The Thumper. 

Despite the incident, Geena decided to move forward with the film -- but ended up getting verbally berated by Bill on set. She recalled a time where Bill screamed at her for being late, despite the fact she had been waiting on a wardrobe adjustment. Geena hasn’t seen or worked with Bill since then and probably never will. 

“I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldn’t have got the part. I could have avoided that treatment if I’d known how to react or what to do during the audition. But, you know, I was so non-confrontational that I just didn’t,” Geena told The Times.