Sophie Turner, Kit Harrington & 6 Other On-Screen Couples Who Also Played Family Members

Sophie Turner and Kit Harrington are best known for their roles as siblings on Game of Thrones, but they’ve also played a couple, which is a bit strange.

The life of an actor is an odd one. In one project they can be playing an astronaut, the next a teacher, and then a supervillain. While there is an expectation that an actor will play a variety of roles, sometimes things can get a little bit weird when former castmates are reunited. Especially for those that go from playing siblings to lovers or vice versa. It can also be fairly disturbing for the audience if, as in the case of Sophie Turner and Kit Harrington, they played siblings across several films, or seasons of a TV show. 

The scenario is not quite as ick-inducing as actors who are in real-life relationships that either start, or go on to play relatives on-screen. A key example would be Dexter’s Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter who fell in love, got married, and then later divorced, all while playing brother and sister on the show. Although not quite as troubling, it remains weird for everyone all round to suddenly see actors who are canonically related suddenly getting intimate with one another. But which actors have had to shake off a previous dynamic in favour of a new one with a co-star? Here’s a selection of some of our favourite sibling and lover pairings.

Sophie Turner & Kit Harrington 

Sophie Turner and Kit Harrington both rose to fame on fantasy series Game of Thrones. The pair played siblings Sansa Stark and Jon Snow from House Stark. Though the true parentage of Snow was revealed later in the show, the character always looked to Sansa as a little sister. Given the sprawling nature of the series, and with Sansa married into the Baratheon family and Jon sent to the Night Watch, the pair did not have many scenes with one another. 

It is this separation that potentially makes their recent coupling in Natasha Kermani’s The Dreadful more acceptable. In The Dreadful they play lovers Anne and Jago, a scenario that both actors have gone on record as saying was an uncomfortable experience, going so far as to retch after their kissing scenes, videos of which are available in behind-the-scenes footage of the shoot.  

Elizabeth Olsen & Aaron Taylor-Johnson

In 2014, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson starred as a married couple doing their best to survive the chaos of Godzilla. In order to raise the stakes of the story, the pair spent much of the movie separated from one another as Taylor-Johnson’s soldier was on the front line of the giant reptile’s attack. Meanwhile, Olsen’s nurse helped casualties at the hospital. When they were on-screen, their chemistry shone, which made their next outing just a year later, a bit odd. 

After Godzilla, the duo joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as mutant twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Their chemistry remained easy, and their previous union helped sell their bond, which served to make the (spoilers) demise of Quicksilver more emotional. 

Rose McGowan & David Arquette

Rose McGowan and David Arquette are best remembered for playing Tatum and Dewey Riley in Scream. Tatum is final girl Sidney Prescott’s bestie, and the younger sister of Deputy Dewey. The dynamic between McGowan and Arquette is pitch perfect as Tatum and Dewey squabble as only siblings can. The horrific garage door demise of Tatum has far-reaching consequences for the rest of the franchise, with her rightly remembered by those that survive Woodsboro. Sidney is also revealed in Scream 7 as having named her eldest daughter after her fallen friend. 

Whilst in the Scream universe Dewey was grieving his sister, in 2000 McGowan and Arquette were reunited on the film Ready to Rumble. Here, their sibling ties were shed as the pair played lovers. The film follows Arquette’s Gordie who dreams of being a wrestler. As he infiltrates the world of the sport he loves, he crosses paths with McGowan’s femme fatale Sasha, and things get spicy. 

Shailene Woodley & Ansel Elgort

Not only have Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort played both lovers and siblings, but both were in adaptations of popular young adult books. First came tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars in which Woodley played cancer patient Hazel, whose parents send her to a cancer support group. There, she meets and falls in love with Elgort’s Gus. Given the nature of their illnesses, it is clear where The Fault in Our Stars is heading, but this does not dilute the emotional impact of the story. 

The next time Woodley and Elgort shared the screen was in the Divergent series where they play sister and brother, Tris and Caleb. The dystopian world in which they reside sees everyone segregated by personality type once they come of age, and the siblings find themselves on opposing sides as Tris becomes Dauntless and Caleb, Erudite. Watching the two go from starry-eyed lovers to siblings, and later enemies, is a lot to take in. 

Jena Malone & Emile Hirsch 

Despite starring Emile Hirsch, Kieran Culkin, Jena Malone, and Jodie Foster, 2002 movie The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is criminally underseen. Featuring an early performance from Hirsch, the film is set in the early ‘70s and follows the coming-of-age stories of a group of Catholic school boys. All of the boys become drawn to Malone’s character, Margie, but it is Hirsch’s Francis that wins her over. 

Five years later, Malone and Hirsch reunited in Into the Wild, where Malone played the sister to Hirsch’s Chris McCandless. Their scenes are fleeting, but the pair make a convincing brother and sister, and due to the underseen nature of The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, don’t come over as strange. 

Sarah Michelle Gellar & Ryan Phillippe

In 1997, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe became icons of teen horror when they played Helen Shivers and Barry Cox in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Arguably more popular characters than the surviving Julie James and Ray Bronson, Helen and Barry were the perfect all-American teenage couple, with Helen a beauty queen and Barry a jock. Their romance was cut short though, after an accidental murder on July 4th. A year later, as they are tormented by a fisherman with a hook for a hand, it looks like a reconciliation might be on the cards, but both perish before that. 

Two years later, in 1999, they had another chance to be a couple in Cruel Intentions, although this dalliance was frowned upon as their characters, Kathryn and Sebastian, are related. Technically related only through marriage, Sebastian has had designs on his step-sister since forever and in a bid to ‘win’ her, he embarks on a cruel wager. 

Alison Oliver & Jacob Elordi

A very recent couple that have gone from siblings to lovers is that of Alison Oliver and Jacob Elordi. The two first appeared together in Saltburn as brother and sister, Felix and Venetia Catton. Their relationship wasn’t explored too deeply, with Venetia just another of the rich people that dastardly Oliver Quick manipulates. The few encounters they have on-screen involved some vicious biting barbs, the type that only siblings can give to one another. 

Then in 2026’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Oliver and Elordi moved from brother and sister to husband and wife. Their on-screen dynamic gets racy and a tad depraved as Oliver’s Isabella gladly agrees to help Elordi’s enraged Heathcliff make Cathy jealous. Interestingly, both Saltburn and Wuthering Heights were directed by Emerald Fennell, and she clearly picked up on something during Saltburn that made her sure they could convincingly play this bizarre coupling.