Justin Timberlake & Ryan Gosling
Everyone knows that Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears first met on The Mickey Mouse Club, but they weren’t the only two future stars on that cast. Timberlake was friends with Ryan Gosling on the show, and they even lived together.
Gosling lived their family for a few months during shooting, and they were somewhat notorious as pranksters. As Justin would later reveal in interviews, they did things like steal golf carts and other shenanigans. The two of them are still friends to this day, and have been extremely successful in their respective fields.
Raven Symone and Lindsay Lohan
Speaking of child stars, both Raven Symone and Lindsay Lohan featured on TV from very young ages, and met during a fashion shoot. They hit it off and decided to become roommates, or at least that was the original plan.
In reality, Lohan was very rarely around, as she became extremely busy after they made the choice to live together. For 14 months, she pretty much just paid rent and left clothes around the place. Of course, there are certainly some of us that wishes our own roommates would be out of the apartment more often.
Jax Taylor and Channing Tatum
This one is a bit more confusing than the Raven and Lohan situation, as it’s not really known if Jax Taylor is lying. In 2013, he started making claims that he lived with Channing Tatum briefly when he first moved to New York to be a model. Tatum himself has never seemed to address whether or not this is true.
His Vanderpump Rules co-star Tom Sandoval claims that that was all a lie. He went on to state that Taylor has lied about a lot over the years, including that his parents owned a portion of CVS.
Justin Long and Jonah Hill
In the mid-2000s, Justin Long and Jonah Hill were both in the early stages of their careers. For them, that might living in Los Angeles, and they ended up rooming together. They were really close friends and Long later described their time together fondly, but little disagreements caused them to eventually separate.
According to Justin, Jonah would do things that annoyed him like not cleaning up after himself, or being insistent on recycling everything. This resulted in bickering between them, and they decided to move on for the betterment of their friendship.
Lauren Graham and Connie Britton
When she appeared on Watch What Happens Live in 2013, Lauren Graham told host Andy Cohan that she used to live with Friday Night Light’s Connie Britton. This was before Graham’s own career had taken off with Gilmore Girls.
On the show, Graham stated that neither of them had much money at the time, and didn’t bother buying furniture at all. They survived mostly on junk food, though they have both since become recognizable TV stars. While she didn’t state why they stopped becoming roommates, Graham did meet her eventual husband around that time, so that probably has something to do with it.
Milo Ventimiglia and Penn Badgley
Given the age different between Milo and Penn, it might seem odd to some that the two of them lived together. At the time, Ventimiglia was 28 while Badgley was 18, still too young to get into bars. However, sharing a living space with someone much older ended up working out in his favor, especially since they looked similar.
Ventimiglia would let Badgley borrow his ID so that he could go out and party, and they looked alike just enough for the ruse to work. According to Badgley, he still has it somewhere as a memento of his younger days.
Adam Sandler & Judd Apatow
Years before they teamed up to make the comedy movie Funny People, Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler rented an apartment in Los Angeles. It wasn’t the only thing that Sandler was renting, as Apatow revealed that his roommate refused to buy a car while they were living together.
Incidentally, Sandler continued to pay his rent in California even after he moved to New York initially to do Saturday Night Live. He was so worried about being fired from the show that he wanted to have his old place still available should he suddenly be out of a job.
Andrew Garfield, Eddie Redmayne, and Jamie Dornan
This trio of award-winning actors all have something in common. They are all from the United Kingdom, and they all ended up living together when they were first starting out in Hollywood. Because they would run into each other over and over at the same auditions, they decided to save some money by living together as well.
They would often pitch in to share a meal together to save money, such as sharing a single sandwich between the three of them. Having money for a meal is definitely no longer a problem for any of them.
Jude Law and Ewan McGregor
Another pair of UK actors living together in Los Angeles, Jude Law and Ewan McGregor’s meeting wasn’t as simple as running into each other. As the story goes, a director they knew gave them 30 dollars and told them to get drunk together to see what happened.
Apparently, they got on extremely well, as they ended up becoming roommates. Unlike some of the previously mentioned flat mates mentioned thus far, they even got into a business together. In 1997, they co-founded Natural Nylon together along with several other friends, a British film and theatre production company.
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson
Anderson and Wilson didn’t exactly pay rent together while they were in college, but not because they lived in a dorm. Their apartment was so run down and shoddy that they actually staged a break to convince their landlord to fix the cracked windows. When that failed, they stopped paying rent and moved out in the middle of the night.
This was the basis behind Wes Anderson’s short film Bottle Rocket, which ended up being made into a movie of the same name. It was Anderson’s feature-length directorial debut along with being Wilson’s first starring role. Although it was considered a commercial failure, it launched both of their careers.
Ilana Glazer and Rachel Bloom
New York is where a lot of aspiring comedians get their start, but the cost of owning property out there is somewhat prohibitive. To fight the cost of rent, Ilana Glazer and Rachel Bloom shared an apartment in Brooklyn before they both blew up with their own shows.
Nowadays, they are both known for starring on their own shows. Bloom went on to create The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which aired its series finale in April of this year. Ironically, that was only a little after Glazer’s Broad City had its own final broadcast, which was in late March.
Conan O’Brien and Jeff Garlin
Chicago is another popular destination for would-be comics, which is where TV stars Conan O’Brien and Jeff Garlin started honing their craft. Both of them were still trying to make a name for themselves, and shared a place in Wrigleyville.
Each have had their own success with the Conan O’Brien Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and remain close with each other. In 2006, they even revisited their old apartment on an episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien prior to the popular talk show host moving to TBS. After the controversy surrounding Conan’s removal from The Tonight Show, Garlin stated he would never be a guest on the show again.
Mel Gibson and Geoffrey Rush
Although Mel Gibson is American, not many people are aware of his Australian roots. His father moved his family to Sydney when he was twelve, which is where he first started developing his acting chops. This is why his earliest theatre credits are all in Australian theaters.
Because he studied acting there instead of in the United States, it put him in contact with another future Australian star, Geoffrey Rush. They lived together when they were both attending the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. The pair even starred together in a production of Waiting for Godot as the two main characters, Estragon and Vladimir.
Amy Smart and Ali Larter
When Amy Smart and Ali Larter appeared in 1999’s Varsity Blues together, they had actually known each other for a while. They were both modeling in Milan, Italy when they first met, becoming instant friends. After they decided they wanted to transition to acting, they started taking acting classes together and roomed in Los Angeles.
Larter is now known to most people as Resident Evil’s Claire Redfield, having starred in the last three installments of the popular video game film franchise. Smart’s transition to the big screen has been fruitful for her as well, having recurring roles on TV series such as Felicity and Shameless as well as starring in movies.
Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand
They didn’t know it at the time, but when Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand lived together for school and then beyond, they probably didn’t imagine both becoming award-winning actresses. They attended the Yale School of Drama, but also lived together in New York as well as Los Angeles.
Hunter ended up winning accolades for her performance in “The Piano”, while “Fargo” was McDormand’s first Academy Award for Best Actress. In addition, she has managed to earn two Primetime Emmy Awards and one Tony Award, putting her on a short list of stars to have won all three.
Burt Reynolds and Lee Corso
Some might not remember that Burt Reynolds was once a budding young athlete, as he had a football scholarship to play with the Florida State University Seminoles. His teammate and roommate was Lee Corso, who became a college football coach and is currently a featured analyst with ESPN’s College GameDay.
Of course, Reynold’s NFL dreams was ruined after multiple injuries, but he definitely transitioned well into acting. He did end up portraying football players in several films, such as Semi-Tough, the original 1974 version of The Longest Yard, and the subsequent 2005 remake.
Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames
A stateside college duo, actors Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames were studying at Purchase College in New York during the late 70s and early 80s. At the time, Rhames was still going by “Irving”, but his roommate thought he would be more memorable if he shortened it to just “Ving.”
It was definitely a good move for the career tough guy, who has made a living portraying characters like Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction and Luther Stickell in Mission: Impossible. Incidentally, Tucci got his own chance to appear in a secret agent film when he appeared in the upcoming 2020 film The King’s Man.
Sherry Stringfield and Parker Posey
Another pair of roommates from SUNY at Purchase, Sherry Stringfield and Parker Posey were roomies in the later 80s. They even started on the same career path, as Posey got her first big role on soap opera As the World Turns, while Stringfield was on CBS Daytime’s Guiding Light.
Stringfield continued onto greater TV success with NYPD Blue and Guiding Light, and most recently had a recurring role on Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. Posey transitioned into movies, but has appeared on television shows as well. She can currently be seen on the reimagining of Lost in Space as Dr. Smith, which returns for a second season in 2019 or early 2020.
Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito made a name for himself over the years with grungy, grumpy characters like Frank Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. According to Michael Douglas, he’s actually a lot neater and more organized than his on-screen personas let on.
The two actors lived together in New York in the 60s before becoming famous, and they worked together in 1984 romantic-comedy film Romancing the Stone. Along with Kathleen Turner, all three reappeared in the sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, as well as unrelated film The War of the Roses.
Robert Downey Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland
During the 80s, Robert Downey Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland lived together prior to their own career explosions. Seeing as they are still friends to this day, it’s fairly obvious that they had a good living relationship. Downey even stated in an interview with Howard Stern that Sutherland helped him through a rough patch when his relationship with Sarah Jessica Parker broke down.
Both are now famous for portraying extremely well-known characters. Sutherland starred as Jack Bauer in Fox series “24” for nine seasons, and Downey’s goatee is now the trademarked look of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Iron Man.
