Chemistry is an impossible thing to force. Not to mention in movies, where believing in it is mandatory. But people are different indeed. And actors are people, whether you like it or not. They are cast according to their way of being and acting, but whenever an on-screen couple has to be created, casting directors usually consider outer appearance and nothing more. If two people look like they matched in real life, this doesn’t necessarily mean their personalities and energies would. So let’s take a look at 10 worst on-screen couples ever.
1. Jennifer Lopez & Ralph Fiennes
You can enjoy their non-chemistry in Maid in Manhattan, where their supposed relationship is extremely awkward. Fiennes himself admits that it was hard being Jennifer Lopez’s love interest because he was so totally out of his element in a romantic comedy. Aside from the odd physical pairing, which may seem interesting at a first glance, their romance, like the film, lacks vividness. There’s no energy, no spark in their romance.
2. Ashley Greene & Jackson Rathbone
The two bloodsuckers from The Twilight Series had no genuine affection or even attraction for one another. They were freezing cold, and not because they were vampires, that’s for sure.
3. Katie Holmes & Christian Bale
Poor old Batman…no chemistry despite all those pheromones… Apart from Rachel constantly reassuring Bruce that he was a good man, over and over again, there was nothing more to their relationship. And then Christian Bale’s blank stares at her.
4. Hugh Grant & Sarah Jessica Parker
They were supposed to make a genuine couple in Did you Hear about the Morgans? But in fact they didn’t. Both Grant and Parker have well defined manners of acting, so their performances never quite come as extremely surprising. So throwing two well-rooted archetypes together like this was expected to create magic. Well, it didn’t. They had nothing in common, that’s for sure.
5. Helen Hunt & Jack Nicholson
Hunt and Nicholson were supposed to be as good as it gets as far as movie romance is concerned. We have nothing bad to say about the film at all, which was surprisingly enjoyable, but we are simply underlining the fact that there was nothing believable about the romantic spark between Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson in this film. Moreover, Helen Hunt almost seemed scared of him.
6. Jennifer Lopez & Ben Affleck
Yes, Jennifer Lopez again, this time with a real life lover, Mr. Affleck. They both starred in Gigli but there was nothing touching about that. The two are just going through the motions, and if one watched it without awareness of the whole “Bennifer” debacle, it would almost be impossible to believe that they were actually dating in real life. Rumor has it that the heavy criticism this film received forced the two to break up the following year.
7. Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders
The acclaimed comedy How I met Your Mother had a charming cast, indeed. The two play a married couple somewhere close to the end of the series, as you probably know. However, their relationship doesn’t come off as convincing. While Harris has chemistry with loads of other ladies who come on the show, he doesn’t have any with Smulders. The producers probably confused friendship and attachment with chemistry. No way!
8. Keira Knightley and Aaron Taylor Johnson
Considering that Anna Karenina, the movie the co-starred in, is about a passionate love affair between the married Anna Karenina -Keira Knightley and Count Vronsky- Aaron Taylor Johnson, this film adaptation falls flat. There’s something about them as a couple that failed to impress.
9. Leonardo DiCaprio & Carey Mulligan
“The Great Gatsby” is centered on the ill-fated love affair between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, while the chemistry between Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan is undetectable in this adaptation. They both are extremely talented, there’s no doubt about that, but nature never lies. They simply haven’t got what it takes when taken as a couple.
10. Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp
No one is really sure how this happened, but in the film The Tourist, there is no chemistry between two of Hollywood’s most attractive people whatsoever. Jolie doesn’t seem react to Depp’s sexiness, and he apparently isn’t left powerless by her gorgeous lips. The movie would have been better if their chemistry had worked. Without it, the plot felt stilted. But they are beautiful to watch, there’s no doubt about that, but separately.
So life in movies isn’t as perfect as producers sometimes wish. It goes without saying that there’s more to a relationship than physical match.
