If there's one thing fandoms love, it's shipping their favorite characters together. It's easy to root for the leads to end up together, but sometimes you might pick a pairing who haven't even met each other onscreen — especially if the actors are dating IRL.
There's so much Marvel content out there that it's really no surprise that some actors from different corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and all of the other non-canon Marvel movies) have actually dated in real life.
Here are 14 pairs of Marvel actors who dated in real life:
1.Tom Holland and Zendaya, who starred as Peter Parker and MJ Watson in Spider-Man: Homecoming, made their red carpet debut as a couple at the 2021 Spider-Man: No Way Home premiere.
They've sweetly referred to each other as "my Spider-Man" and "my MJ" on Instagram.
Garfield told Variety that playing Peter Parker "was only beautiful" because "I got to meet Emma [Stone] and work with her and Sally Field."
3.Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, who played Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in 2002's Spider-Man, began dating while filming the first movie but broke up before production began on the sequel.
Director Sam Raimi told the Sydney Morning Herald, "I was concerned they wouldn't get the same chemistry back, but it was just me worrying...that relationship probably just added to their ability to trust each other."
4.Emily VanCamp, who played Sharon Carter in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Chris Pratt, who played Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy, dated pre-MCU from 2004 to 2007 while playing siblings on Everwood.
Pratt told TV Guide, "The people who know us are happy and probably expected it to happen eventually. But yeah, every once in a while, we get that one person that's like, 'That's really creepy. You just kissed your sister.'"
5.Gemma Chan, who played Sersi in Eternals, and Dominic Cooper, who played Howard Stark in Captain America: The First Avenger, have been together since 2018.
During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, they volunteered for COOK-19 together and delivered food to frontline healthcare workers.
6.Natalie Portman, who played Jane Foster in Thor, and Jake Gyllenhaal, who played Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home, were romantically linked in 2002.
They went out again in 2006.
7.Paul Bettany, who played Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Jennifer Connelly, who voiced Karen (the AI in Peter's suit) in Spider-Man: Homecoming, have been married since 2003.
They met on the set of A Beautiful Mind in 2001, and he proposed to her before they started dating.
8.Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana, who played Rocket Raccoon and Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, began dating while shooting The Words together in 2011.
However, they broke up right before New Year's in 2012.
9.Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei, who played Tony Stark and Aunt May in Spider-Man: Homecoming, dated from 1993 to 1994.
They were also in Only You and Chaplin together.
10.Ryan Reynolds, who played Wade Wilson in Deadpool, and Scarlett Johansson, who played Natasha Romanoff in The Avengers, were married from 2008 to 2011.
In 2019, Johansson told Vanity Fair, "I didn’t really have an understanding of marriage. Maybe I kind of romanticized it, I think, in a way."
11.Richard Madden, who played Ikaris in Eternals, and Jenna Coleman, who made a brief appearance as Connie in Captain America: The First Avenger, dated from 2012 to 2015.
While they were together, he loved visiting her on the Doctor Who set. He told Vulture, "I can geek out about it, like when I go to set and see the TARDIS. I was selfie-ing the shit out of it and sending it to my dad!"
12.Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult, who played Raven Darkhölme and Hank McCoy in X-Men: First Class, dated from 2010 to 2013.
After their breakup, Lawrence told Vogue that the fact that he never wrung out dish sponges was somewhat of a red flag. She said, "We were in the kitchen once, and I picked up the sponge and it was soapy and wet, and I was like, ‘See?’ These are the kinds of things that make me think we are never going to work.”
13.Leslie Bibb and Sam Rockwell, who played Christine Everhart and Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, have been together since 2007.
They met by chance in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont on West Hollywood.
14.And finally, Tom Hiddleston, who played Loki in Thor, and Zawe Ashton, who is set to play a villain in The Marvels (2023), have been romantically linked since starring in Betrayal together in 2019.
