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Famous people weren’t always famous. Like anyone working toward a promotion or trying to make it big in their profession, many celebrities had to work from the bottom to get to the top. That meant carpooling, working with other celebs to market themselves, and sharing living arrangements. Yes, even the biggest stars who now live in massive mansions or have made millions of dollars—some of whom have even won Nobel Prizes—once had to bunk with someone else just to make ends meet or get things started on the right foot.
Did you know that there are some celebrities who wouldn't have made if it wasn't for their celebrity roommates? There are others who made lifelong friends out of their room buddies by spending a few years in college with someone who made such an impact it changed their lives forever. There's even a case where a celebrity just followed another around and refused to leave, sleeping on his kitchen floor until they both made it big.
Below is a list of 15 pairs of former roommates who might surprise you. These are folks you might not imagine made a lot of sense together but, for one reason or another, got paired up and made it work. From politicians to musicians and from actors to directors, there's no limit to how cool some of these stories are.
Which partnership is the most surprising? Which pair seems the most like oil and water? Who seems to fit like a glove? Feel free to leave your comments and let us know what you think.
Raven Symone and Lindsay Lohan
Raven Symone and Lindsay Lohan were both child actors who made it big but didn’t actually roommate together until after they were already stars. The former stars of Herbie the Love Bug and The Cosby Show met during a fashion shoot and briefly shared an apartment.
It was one of those ideal roommate situations where one felt like they had the place to themselves. Raven said Lohan was so busy working that she was hardly ever there.
The funny thing is, Lohan actually paid rent which is far more than she’s rumoured to be able to afford these days. If you’ve seen Lohan, she’s probably the last person you’d pick to room with. The two haven’t stayed remotely close and Raven seems to be the one who’s busy now with a new hit show on the Disney Channel.
Tommy Lee Jones And Al Gore
Sometimes, you don’t pick your friends, and life just sort of picks them for you. That’s what happened with former college football player (now actor)
Tommy Lee Jones and former vice-presidential candidate (now environmentalist) Al Gore who went to Harvard together and got randomly paired up in their freshman year as roommates.
Over their time in the Dunster House, they became best buds and requested to be roommates for the rest of their stay in college. While clearly no longer roommates and each having gone on to be quite successful in their related fields, the two are still very close to the point that Jones gave the nomination speech for Gore’s Presidency bid instead of a fellow politician. Jones listed watching Star Trek, chasing loose cows and cooking Thanksgiving turkey in their dorm room as part of their shared experiences.
John Cusack And Jeremy Piven
It doesn’t happen often but sometimes celebrities know each other from a very young age and grind out the task of getting discovered as a duo. That’s the case for actors Jeremy Piven and John Cusack who met as kids in Chicago when Cusack joined a theater workshop that Piven’s parents ran.
They remained close friends and eventually roomed together as they struggled to get their first big breaks.
Clearly, both were able to make it big, starring in a ton of films and many together. You can catch both actors in the movies Say Anything, Serendipity, Grosse Point Blank, and Runaway Jury (a film that also stars two other roommates on our list). Cusack was the bigger star for a while, but today, the roles are reversed with Cusack in mostly straight-to-DVD films and Piven getting some big TV parts.
Robin Williams And Christopher Reeve
The story of John Cusack and Jeremy Piven is a good one but we're not sure if the two made a pact to help each other out no matter what. Well, that's exactly what Robin Williams and Christoper Reeve did.
They became close friends and roommates while attending Juilliard School in New York. Both promised that if one of them “made it,” they would help the other out and ensure each person's dreams came true.
It worked because both became huge successes and lifelong friends. Unfortunately, both also had some extremely negative things happen in their lives. When Reeve was injured in a horseback-riding accident in 1995, Williams offered to pay any medical costs not covered by Reeve’s insurance. Williams ended up working closely with the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and went a step beyond that of a typical roommate. Unfortunately, Reeve died in 2004, and Williams ended up taking his own life in 2014.
Stanley Tucci And Ving Rhames
This might seem like an odd pairing at first glance wondering where the connection is and seeing as how it might be hard to name a movie or television project these two worked together on, but they were very good friends.
The actors met and became close pals rooming at the State University of New York-Purchase where they were both enrolled in the drama program.
In fact, Irving Rameses Rhames was how Ving Rhames used to be known before Stanley Tucci suggested that he shorten his name to be more memorable. It must have worked because within a year, Ving was out getting scholarships to study classical theater at Juilliard. Did Tucci rename other famous actors that we don't know about? Maybe, but Ving Rhames was probably his most helpful advice. The name alone puts an image in your head of a character Ving has often been cast to play on screen.
Judd Apatow And Adam Sandler
Look around Hollywood comedies these days and you'll be hard-pressed to find a funny movie that either Adam Sandler or Judd Apatow is not a part of. Apatow has become a famous director/producer while Sandler is one of the biggest movie stars in the world. However,
when they were breaking into the business, Apatow and Sandler shared an apartment in Los Angeles. On most nights, they were working as stand-up comedians.
Apatow is known for working with a lot of the same actors over and over but he hasn't actually worked with Sandler as much as some others. That said, one of the films they did work on was Funny People, which starred Sandler and Seth Rogen. The footage at the start of the film where a younger Sandler was making pranks calls was actually real footage shot when the two lived together.
Gene Hackman And Dustin Hoffman
Two of the most respected actors in the film over the last thirty years were once roommates. Yes, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman became house buddies when living as students at the Pasadena Playhouse. Oddly enough,
they were voted as the pair “least likely to succeed.” They sure proved people wrong.
Hackman went on to star in countless movies before deciding to call it a career and Hoffman became an Academy Award winner and nominee for several projects. Before either of them made it big, Hoffman actually followed Hackman to New York and slept on his kitchen floor. It was supposed to be extremely short-term, but when Hoffman refused to leave, it lasted a whole lot longer. They became close friends and worked together on a few projects including starring together in Runaway Jury.
Holly Hunter And Frances McDormand
One is the recent star of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and the other recently appeared in the Justice League film but both have had long and successful acting careers. Separately, Francis McDormand and Holly Hunter are well-known for being leading ladies in movies but fewer people likely knew they were roommates at one time.
Randomly assigned as roomies while at Yale School of Drama, the two went to New York together and lived in the same place while trying to make it big.
The amazing part of this story is that Hunter couldn't make an audition so she suggested McDormand to go instead. McDormand wound up winning the lead in the film Blood Simple, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Hunter must get a pretty nice thank you Christmas card each year.
Kiefer Sutherland And Robert Downey Jr.
Sometimes, actors don't have to work quite as hard to get noticed. That was probably the case with Robert Downey Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland who were the sons of some very famous people. That said, it doesn't mean that getting to where they are today was a cakewalk.
For three years in the 80's, the pair lived together while trying to start their careers.
Word is, they threw quite the parties but those stories may be exaggerated on account of their individual reputations for being bad boys. Today, Downey Jr. is one of the highest-paid male actors in the world while Sutherland continues to make hit television show after hit television show. Both have had much longer careers than the average celeb. They know how to reinvent themselves and find roles that make them superstars.
Mel Gibson And Geoffrey Rush
Sometimes, stories of celebrities turn out to be kind and emotional stories about two people randomly meeting each other, hitting it off and becoming lifelong friends. That's not necessarily the case with Mel Gibson and Geoffrey Rush who became roommates in 1979 while working on a local production called Waiting for Godot.
As the show was being run in Sydney, Australia, the two now-famous actors shared an apartment. Gibson didn't describe it as great, lovely, or wonderful. He described it as “pretty desperate.”
Gibson has since gone on to be a famous actor, acclaimed director, and certified nut job. Rush has won awards for his acting but became mostly known as the Pirates of the Caribbean guy. Either way, both have made a boatload of money and don't need roommates anymore.
Owen Wilson And Wes Anderson
How do you know if a producer/director and an actor have become extremely close? The answer usually is in how many projects the two end up working together in. For Wes Anderson, he must really love Owen Wilson because almost every film Anderson has ever been involved in has Wilson cast in it. This likely came about because they were roommates while students at the University of Texas.
The two collaborated on a ton of projects, including films, term papers, and schemes to get out of their living situation with a crummy landlord who refused to fix their windows.
The duo of Wilson and Anderson actually had to stage a break-in and move out in the middle of the night. If you try to work together to get out of your rent payments by faking an illegal crime, working together on a film should be a piece of cake.
Justin Timberlake And Ryan Gosling
You'd have to either go way back on your research or be huge fans of these two to know that Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling starred together on The Mickey Mouse Club when they were kids. They, along with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and JC Chasez, were regulars on the kids TV program in the 90's and did multiple skits and musical numbers together.
But that experience required for them to be roommates for a while as they filmed in Orlando, Florida.
Gosling was Canadian and Timberlake from Memphis, Tennessee. Neither of their parents were permanent fixtures where the show was produced and filmed so they bunked as castmates. There's no real story of these two being lifelong friends after the experience but Timberlake once admitted that they were closer than most castmates since they shared a bathroom.
Ben Affleck And Matt Damon
There may not be a more infamous duo than Ben Affleck and Matt Damon who became known for working together as friends to create the script for Good Will Hunting. They won an Oscar in 1997 for their work. They've remained extremely close ever since, and in Hollywood circles, people tied them together on projects over and over. It all started for them as roommates.
Affleck once said in an interview, "We rented this house on the beach in Venice and 800 people came and stayed with us and got drunk." After they ran out of money, they were forced to get an apartment and continually move around because they had no money and couldn't afford to stay in one place for long. Surely, those kinds of experiences made them the successes that they are today.
Winona Ryder And Gwyneth Paltrow
Former friends
Winona Ryder and Gwyneth Paltrow used to live together in Los Angeles in the 90's.
This story is not like many others on this list that ended happily ever after, though. As this story goes, Paltrow apparently found the script for Shakespeare in Love lying around and auditioned for the role Winona wanted, getting the part instead of Ryder. Paltrow won an Oscar for her performance. Then, in 2009, after Paltrow launched her website, Goop, she wrote an article talking about a former friend who was "pretty hellbent on taking me down." Paltrow said she took the high road but was happy to hear about the misfortune of that person when things went south in her life. Most people believed that she was talking about Ryder and the shoplifting charge that knocked her out of Hollywood for a while.
Jason Priestley And Brad Pitt
Sometimes, one person goes on to be a massive star and the other was a star for a while and sort of faded away from the spotlight even though they keep working. That would describe Brad Pitt (the huge star) and Jason Priestly (the once popular star who faded). Priestley wrote a book called Jason Priestley: A Memoir, the former Beverly Hills, 90210 star, and in that book, he discussed being former roommates with Brad Pitt.
He said, they were often completely broke and would have contests to see who could go the longest without showering or shaving.
The only reason someone would lose was that they had to clean up for an audition. Pitt has come a long way since those days. Priestly hasn't done so bad for himself either.
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