We, as a society, love it when huge celebrities are paired together in a new movie or TV show. And, even more so, we love to imagine that those stars are banging each other while filming it.
On one hand, it’s the entire point of the fantasy at play: The chemistry between actors should be so believable that you’re convinced that the people you’re watching are smuggling that spark into their real lives. On the other hand, we’re all just kind of pervy. It’s fun to imagine that these super hot, super famous people are boinking.
This grand, horny tradition is fed by countless instances of the fantasy coming to fruition: real-life celebrity couples whose romance started on set, from Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, to Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (the O.G. version). The cynical Hollywood industrial complex isn’t ignorant of this. Whether it’s Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, or Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, co-stars who weren’t actually hooking up (or so they say…) have been more than happy to indulge fans’ thirsty wishes and play the part for attention. We certainly never mind. Even the farce is fun—though these people’s spouses may be God’s strongest soldiers.
So while this isn’t a new phenomenon, there is something strikingly fresh and unexpected about the latest iteration of it. That is to say: I don’t think anyone anticipated the Second Coming of Brangelina to be…Martin Short and Meryl Streep.
Short and Streep play lovers on Only Murders in the Building, which just launched its fourth season this week. Ever since the bombshell dropped in October that Streep and her husband of 45 years, Don Gummer, secretly split up six years ago, Short and Streep became unlikely fixtures of tabloid rumors and gossip blogs.
Energy typically reserved for chronicling that romantic exploits of Taylor Swift or Jennifer Aniston were suddenly redirected to the industry veterans, which was certainly a change of pace. Photos of them “canoodling” on set (in other words, basically just hanging out and talking in close proximity) or out together for dinner after shooting were served up as proof of a burgeoning relationship. Those flames were fanned when they posed together and held hands at the Only Murders Season 4 premiere last week.
On social media, people seem obsessed by the idea of these two being an item. A recent Daily Beast edit meeting was derailed for longer than any of us would like to admit by the entire staff buzzing about them. It’s wild that the most talked about Hollywood pairing right now is, of all people, Meryl Streep and Martin Short.
There’s nothing intentionally ageist about marveling over this. Sure, the love lives of septuagenarians are rarely fodder for TMZ stalking and culture vulture rumor mongering. If anything, it’s actually quite inspiring. When I’m on my second or third divorce in my seventies, I hope the adoring public will be rooting for me to still be getting some, too. The intrigue, I think, lies in the fact that, famous as these two are, they’ve never been the kind of celebrity to feature in a frenzy over their personal lives like this. The surprise factor of it all is part of the fascination.
It’s also nice that there isn’t anything torrid about the circumstances. Infidelity on anyone’s part isn’t a part of the gossip. Online trolls aren’t villainizing or cruelly attacking either party. It’s all kind of sweet and wholesome. These are two people who have been friends for decades. It’s a fairy tale that’s every bit as swoon-inducing to imagine friends falling in love late in life as it is to drool over the thought of the hot It Girl and Hollywood Hunk of the moment tearing each other’s clothes off in the trailer between takes. (And if Streep and Short are doing that too—even better!)
Meryl Streep and Martin Short in Only Murders in the Building
Patrick Harbron/Hulu
Both Streep and Short have denied a relationship. Streep’s publicist said in a statement that they’re just close friends, and Short said the same in an interview with Bill Maher when he called them a “power couple.” That doesn’t matter to any of us.
We’ll all still dish about them. In our collective minds, they’ll still be together. Heck, maybe Streep and Short are even taking a page out of the Sweeney-Powell playbook and exaggerating their relationship for publicity. We don’t mind; we’re all complicit in the charade. It’s part of the fun, and we need that fun.
There’s something voyeuristic about being able to watch a show or a movie in which characters fall in love, with the knowledge—or at least the suspicion—that the actors were falling in love too. The romance between Short and Streep’s characters on Only Murders is so, so sweet. Who wouldn’t want to imagine that for them in real life, too?
