Chemistry is the only thing Hollywood can’t fake, this is a town that manufactures new faces daily and snow in July.
Two gorgeous people without chemistry look like they’re posing next to a rental car. Two people with chemistry could be standing in line at a Trader Joe’s and you’d feel like you should leave.
I’ve had thirty years of evidence to review. Magazines, premieres, awards seasons. A red carpet is a police lineup and I’m the witness behind the glass. You can see who looks cold and who looks hot. Some couples hold hands like they’re transferring a file. Others stand four feet apart and I still have to go lie down.
I’ve put in the hours it takes to become a surgeon and I have saved no one. What I can offer is a ruling:
Here are the 25 couples, past and present, whose sex tape I’d want to see. The only qualification is that they would have forgotten the camera was on.
25. Nick Cave and PJ Harvey
Mid-nineties, brief. Met in 1995 recording “Henry Lee,” a duet about a woman who murders a man for leaving her. The video is one take of the two of them unable to look anywhere else. She ended it over the phone and he wrote most of an album about it, which is the most expensive way to not get over someone.
24. Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara
Together since 2016. Met in 2012 on the set of Her, where he was convinced she despised him. She was shy. They got together years later while he was playing Jesus and she was playing Mary Magdalene, a workplace romance no HR department is equipped for. Their son River was born in 2020.
23. Sean Penn and Charlize Theron
Late 2013 to June 2015. Friends for almost twenty years first, which is a long time to circle a runway. The engagement everyone reported never existed, according to her. He directed her in a movie while they were together, and Cannes booed it after they split.
22. Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson
1973 to 1990, on and off. Met at a party at his house. It was his birthday, she was 21, and she stayed for seventeen years. They made Prizzi’s Honor together with her father directing. He was nominated for the Oscar and she’s the one who walked out with it.
Twenty-one more behind the wall, counting down to number 1.
