Unlike their onscreen counterparts, the vibes were very good between Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul when they began filming their critically acclaimed AMC series *Breaking Bad*.
“I instantly fell in love with this man,” Paul told *Esquire* in the pair’s joint cover story for the January 2022 issue. “He’s impossible not to love.” Paul went on to say that Cranston became “one of my closest friends—my mentor—very early on” in the show’s run. Cranston is also the godfather of his second child, son Ryden Caspian, with his wife Lauren Paul.
After *Breaking Bad* ended, Cranston and Paul teamed up once again in 2019 to launch a Mezcal line called Dos Hombres. In their *Esquire* interview, Cranston was quick to credit Paul as the “brains” of their business venture. “He started it all. It was his idea,” Cranston said. “He knows more about business than I do. Someone has to be the cover girl, and that’s me.”
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Oft-cited as the gold standard of co-stars turned best friends, the *Friends* duo instantly connected when they were cast on the iconic NBC series in 1994. They famously ate lunch together every day during the show’s decade-long run.
Jennifer Aniston is the godmother of Courteney Cox’s daughter Coco Arquette, and Cox was there for Aniston when her marriage to Brad Pitt fell apart in 2005.
“There’s absolutely no judgment in Court,” Aniston gushed to *More* magazine in 2014 for a profile on her friend. “You’ll never feel scolded. She’s extremely fair, ridiculously loyal and fiercely loving.” She added, “I’ve slept in her guest bedroom a lot. Without giving away too much of my private stuff, all I can say is she’s been there for me through thick and thin.”
But it’s not just hard times that the best friends have shared. Cox told *TV Week* in 2010, “We just have fun, we laugh, we’re inseparable and it’s great.”
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Just call them blood brothers. After spending eight seasons as brooding vampires Damon and Stefan Salvatore on *The Vampire Diaries*, Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley weren’t ready to put a stake in their relationship.
They launched Brother’s Bond Bourbon in 2020, referencing their characters’ drink of choice that eventually bled into their off-set after-hour hangouts as the inspiration for their liquor brand. Already used to being “attached at the hip,” according to Wesley in a 2021 interview with *The Hollywood Reporter*, their company led them to the “2.0” phase of their lives.
Somerhalder added, “This is gonna be another decade together.” And, like their beloved characters, Somerhalder and Wesley’s differences blending together make for a potent pairing.
“Ian is an eternal optimist and I’m an eternal pessimist,” Wesley explained. “We balance each other out in so many ways—he’ll go big, and then I’ll bring him down a little sometimes, when it’s necessary.”
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Forget Joey and Pacey, or Joey and Dawson, because Busy Philipps and Michelle Williams were the true love story of *Dawson’s Creek*.
The actresses became close when Philipps joined the WB series in 2001. “Someone had said, ‘When you two meet, there is going to be a chemical reaction,'” Williams recalled in a 2018 interview with *People*. “I had been really excited for this girl to land in Wilmington. We became inseparable and I fell in love with her.”
Their time working together was formative. “My memory of being with her then doesn’t have anything to do with the show or working, but it was on our time off,” Philipps told *Entertainment Weekly*. “It was talking on the porch all night long and it was back when bread was still okay to eat. It was copious amounts of bread. That’s what I remember: an endless conversation over multiple bread baskets.”
In the years since *Dawson’s Creek* ended in 2003, they have remained one of Hollywood’s closest pairs of friends. It was Philipps who rushed to Williams’ Brooklyn row home after her former partner Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment of an accidental overdose in 2008.
“I said to her recently, ‘You have really saved me from ever being lonely because you are always right there,'” Williams told *People* in 2018. “We are so close and can tell each other everything. I don’t know what I would be or who I would be without Busy.”
Philipps, who is godmother to Matilda Ledger, was Williams’ go-to date to award shows for years, with each experience reminding the duo how far they have come.
“I think for her, and for me too, to have each other by our sides as we go through this process, and when she’s been nominated, or on other red carpets that we’ve done together, or events, it’s just great to have somebody that can be your touchstone for reality,” Philipps explained to *Elle*.
“Maybe I’m giving away a secret, but we always try right before we get to one of these red carpets to just look at each other and say, ‘Don’t forget how lucky we are. This is our life now.'”
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House Stark forever! While Sansa and Arya may not have always had the best sister relationship on *Game of Thrones*, Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams forged an unbreakable bond when they began filming the HBO series.
Turner called them “pretty much best friends” from the moment they wrapped their chemistry read. That feeling was mutual. “I thought Sophie was the coolest thing I’d ever seen,” Maisie recalled to *Rolling Stone*. “I get why they do chemistry reads, because when it’s right, it’s so right. Like, we’re best friends. And they could see that all those years ago, and it must have been real magic watching these two girls have the best time together.”
As they grew up in front of the world, the two relied on each other to deal with the pitfalls that come with fame.
“Maisie is definitely my protector and I’m hers, too,” Turner told *Glamour UK*. “I know if anything happened, she’d go crazy and protect me.” Williams echoed the sentiment, sharing, “She really helped me through some messy breakups and some friend breakups.”
To commemorate their bond, the duo got matching tattoos of the date they both learned they had been cast on *GoT*.
“She’s one of my best friends in the whole world,” Sophie, who had Maisie serve as maid of honor at her 2019 wedding to Joe Jonas, previously told *E! News*. “With Thrones, we were always planning, from season one, like if we make it all the way through, hopefully we could all get a matching thing.”
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It’s hard to imagine two people having more fun than JD and Turk on *Scrubs*, but their real-life counterparts, Zach Braff and Donald Faison, have even better banter IRL than on the NBC medical sitcom.
Braff and Faison met for the first time at the table read for the show, with Faison admitting in a 2020 interview with BUILD Series that the moment reminded him of the feeling he got meeting his wife for the first time.
“That was exactly the energy we felt when we met,” Faison said. “He is my best friend. It is legit when I say this.”
The pair went on to live together in New York City after *Scrubs*’ first season, which, he said, “cemented it. That’s when we knew we were going to be together forever.”
While *Scrubs* ended in 2010, the best friends professionally reunited during the pandemic to launch their podcast, *Fake Doctors, Real Friends*, which quickly became a hit.
The two now live just a few streets away from each other in Los Angeles, according to *GQ*, and Faison married his wife Cacee Cobb at best man Braff’s home in 2012.
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Much to the delight of their fans, *The Office* alums Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak are always quick to make light of their “complicated” personal and professional relationship, even taking the stage at the 2022 Emmys for a hilarious bit.
Even though their romance fizzled in 2007, Kaling and Novak grew even closer as confidants.
“He is a wonderful friend and he’s godparent of both of my kids and he loves children and they’re so attached to him,” Kaling explained on *The Drew Barrymore Show* last year. “He’s really a part of our family. But we’ve known each other for a long, long time.”
Mindy continued, “I think anyone who’s been friends with someone for 18, 19 years and at one point dated and now doesn’t, they maybe understand this.”
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While their characters clashed throughout *Veronica Mars*’ three-season run, Kristen Bell and Ryan Hansen quickly became best friends when they met in 2004.
“I have known Ryan Hansen since we were baby-people,” Bell wrote in an Instagram post for Hansen’s birthday in 2021. “He was my arch-nemesis on Veronica Mars, but became my best friend in real life. After VMars we became roommates, and (self-proclaimed) brothers. We hang out almost every day because we love hanging out together.”
Hansen is the godfather to Bell’s two daughters with Dax Shepard, and his wife, Amy Hansen, was the witness at their 2013 wedding.
Their families often go on vacations together and were in each other’s COVID pods during the pandemic, leading Bell to dub the group “super spouses.”
To say “I love having him in my life is an understatement,” the *Good Place* star wrote in another birthday tribute to Hansen. “I simply would not be the person I am today without his friendship and the people he has brought into my life.”
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Jonathan Groff isn’t the only co-star that became one of Lea Michele’s closest friends. The *Glee* star formed a close bond with Darren Criss when he joined the Fox musical’s cast in its second season, even going on tour together in 2018.
“Darren’s spontaneity really does push me to do things I would never do before, and it really builds up my confidence a lot, whether or not he knows that,” Michele told *Billboard* at the time. “So I’m very grateful for him and his friendship. We’re both very ambitious people, so this just feels like a very natural thing for us to be doing in our careers and in our friendship. And it feels great to feel like I’m getting to see a different side of myself along the way.”
The pair enjoy a sibling dynamic, with Criss admitting to *The Los Angeles Times* that making fun of Michele is “one of my favorite pastimes, because I love Lea and care about her and am inspired by her talent. And that just makes her more susceptible to my joking.”
When Michele made her triumphant return to Broadway in *Funny Girl* in October 2022, Criss and his wife, Mia, were in the audience to support her.
“The amount of times this guy has seen me sing ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade,'” Michele later captioned an Instagram post of the sweet moment. “I love you @darrencriss and @miavoncriss.”
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