Celebrity roommates: 20 pairs of stars who used to live together

Madeline Boardman, Britt HayesThu, September 3, 2026 at 10:15 PM UTC

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Connie Britton and Lauren Graham; Ewan McGregor and Jude LawCredit: Lauren Graham/X; Dave Benett/Getty

Before they were big stars with the paychecks to match, these celebrities were struggling to make ends meet and living with roommates, just like anyone else.

It’s fun to imagine being a fly on the wall in the apartment (or dorm room) of some of these famous former roommate duos. When they weren’t divvying up the chores and splitting the bills, what did Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito do with their free time? What was it like in Lauren Graham and Connie Britton’s house? Who was the messy roommate? Who was too noisy? Better yet: What (and who) were these future famous folks gossiping about?

Unfortunately, we don’t have answers to all of our most pressing questions. What we do have is a list of celebrities who used to be roommates, and their (mostly) fond memories of living under the same roof.

01 of 20

Ilana Glazer and Rachel Bloom

Ilana Glazer and Rachel Bloom, via InstagramCredit: Instagram.com/racheldoesstuff

Before Ilana Glazer and Rachel Bloom became TV stars on Broad City and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, respectively, they were roommates in New York.“[Six] years ago we were roommates in Brooklyn and now we have tv shows,” Bloom wrote in a 2016 Instagram post featuring photos of the two together. “@ilanusglazer is just the best.”

Bloom was grilled about her former roommate the following month on an episode of Watch What Happens Live, in which Andy Cohen asked the actress just how much pot got smoked in their old apartment. “She was way more fun than I was. She smoked a lot more pot,” Bloom said. “I was in my room being a loner.” Asked who paid more rent, Bloom said, “I did because I wanted the bigger room ’cause I’m messier.”

02 of 20

Connie Britton and Lauren Graham

Connie Britton and Lauren Graham, via Twitter/XCredit: Twitter.com/thelaurengraham

Lauren Graham and Connie Britton were roommates in the early days of their career, but based on the humorous way that Graham describes the situation, it almost sounds like they were squatters. “We lived in an empty house that we weren’t supposed to be living in,” Graham told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live in 2013. “We had no furniture and all we ate were Rice Krispies Treats.”

The Gilmore Girls star expanded on the lore during a 2025 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show. “We met in an acting class in New York, and we each got some little job that was bringing us to L.A.,” said Graham. “She was like, ‘Hear me out. I have a friend who has an abandoned house.’” Britton then appeared for a round of rapid-fire questions about their time as roommates. Asked about their weirdest jobs back then, she revealed that Britton was an actress for murder mystery parties, while Graham once wore a dog mascot costume “all day” to promote the World Cup.

03 of 20

Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake

Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake for ‘The All New Mickey Mouse Club’Credit: Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake bunked together back when they were costars on The All New Mickey Mouse Club. “[Gosling’s] mother had to keep her job in Canada the second year that we were on the television show and my mom was his guardian for like six months,” Timberlake explained to Ellen DeGeneres in 2011. “So we actually lived together when we were that age. So we were probably a little closer than the rest of the kids that were on the show just because we had to share a bathroom.”

04 of 20

Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand

Holly Hunter and Frances McDormandCredit: Jim Ruymen/AFP/Getty Images

As she explained during a 2021 appearance on NPR’s Bullseye, Holly Hunter was in her early 20s when she met Frances McDormand, whose boyfriend was best friends with Hunter’s boyfriend. “We just recognized each other,” Hunter said of their instant friendship. “We hit it off.”

After moving to the Bronx, both women broke up with their respective boyfriends and decided to move in together. “We kind of had a blast. We were kind of broke, but of course when you’re in your early 20s, being broke is, like, no big deal,” Hunter explained. “I mean, it was an adventure in some way... It felt kind of fantastic. You know, you take your pleasures where you can get them. ‘Hey, man, I got enough money to get a beer. Let’s go to the bar.’ You know.”

05 of 20

Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler

Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler at the premiere of ‘Funny People’ on July 20, 2009Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Judd Apatow’s friendship with Adam Sandler goes way back to the late ’80s, when the filmmaker and the funny man were just getting started in the New York comedy scene. “It was a fun time because all we were doing every day was trying to write jokes and get up on stage at the improv at night and tell those jokes,” Apatow told PEOPLE. “We were very focused. We didn’t have much more to our lives. We had no responsibility whatsoever, and we were just hustling.”

“We all knew Adam was going to make it,” Apatow continued. “He was just remarkably funny to be around and had so much charisma.” Sure enough, Sandler was hired as a writer on Saturday Night Live in 1990, before joining the cast from 1991 to 1995. “One day he said, ‘I’m going to go audition for Saturday Night Live,’” the filmmaker recalled. “And then the next day he said, ‘I got it.’ Then he left me alone in the apartment.”

06 of 20

Jonah Hill and Justin Long

Jonah Hill and Justin LongCredit: Amy Tierney/WireImage

According to Justin Long, he became friends with Jonah Hill in the early 2000s while filming guest spots on the show Campus Ladies. In a 2006 interview, Hill said that he and Long really bonded while filming the college comedy Accepted.

“We both had a similar sense of humor,” the Wolf of Wall Street star explained. “And you know, he is an awesome guy, really cool guy. It’s good in this business, I’m learning in my short time, when you meet someone who you genuinely think is cool to stay friends with them, because it’s more few and far between than probably other businesses, of people like actually being cool, down-to-earth, kind of normal guys.”

During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Long told host Andy Cohen that the best part of living with Hill was they “laughed like hyenas,” adding, “the worst part is that we were both equally pretty messy.”

07 of 20

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson

Owen Wilson and Wes AndersonCredit: J. Vespa/WireImage

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson met when they were both students at the University of Texas at Austin and lived together while cowriting the screenplay for Anderson’s debut, 1996’s Bottle Rocket. “We could have been going to some jobs and saving up a thousand dollars a month to make a movie, but we never did that,” Anderson told the Los Angeles Times. “We were just ambitious to try to get somebody else to give us money to make the movie.”

It was around that time, according to LA Weekly, that Anderson and Wilson were feuding with their landlord, who was refusing to fix the cranks on their windows. In order to prove a point, the roommates staged a break-in. Nothing came of it, and when Anderson and Wilson stopped paying rent in retaliation, their landlord threatened to take their belongings.

“We ended up moving in the middle of the night, and he hunted us down with a private investigator,” Anderson told the publication. “I went to meet him, and I proposed doing this project.” The project was a documentary that Anderson wanted to make for local public access television about his eccentric landlord.

“He believed in, like, death penalties for drunk driving, burglary, and he had this pet snake that died and that he had given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which didn’t work,” Anderson explained. “I said, ‘Well, what was the snake’s name?’ And he said, ‘Ah, we didn’t really give it a name, we just called it baby, or snake.’ And I said, ‘Uh, well, what did you do with the snake after it died?’ And he said, ‘I have it in the freezer in the back. I’d like to take it to a taxidermist.”

08 of 20

Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore

Tommy Lee Jones and Al GoreCredit: Stephen Lovekin/WireImage

Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore lived together while attending Harvard. Jones touched on his relationship with the former vice president in a speech nominating Gore for the presidency in 2000. “I lived with him for four years,” the actor said (via ABC News). “What did we do? We shot pool and watched Star Trek, when maybe we should have been studying for exams. He’d challenge me to shooting contests. We’d see who could hit a tin can from the farthest away. And it was usually Al.”

09 of 20

Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito

Michael Douglas and Danny DeVitoCredit: Joe Corrigan/Getty Images

Danny DeVito and Michael Douglas met in 1965, when they worked together building a theater in Connecticut. As DeVito told AARP, they instantly hit it off. “The guys wanted to do a beer run, and Michael had a motorcycle, so he volunteered to go,” the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star recalled. “He said, ‘I need somebody to carry the beer while I’m driving.’ So I go with him. He’s got hair down to his butt. I did too. You know, we’re hippies. Anyway, we’re on our way to the motorcycle, and I had some pot, and I said, ‘Do you get high?’ He says, ‘Yeah.’ So we got high. He let me try driving the bike. I couldn’t do it because my feet couldn’t reach the ground.”

“We had a lot of fun and then maintained our friendship over an incredibly long period of time,” Douglas said. “When I graduated from college and ended up in New York, he and I were roommates. He just was a special guy. And I think it was also that I was a little self-conscious in terms of being an early nepo baby, and he never treated me as a movie star’s son.”

10 of 20

Conan O’Brien and Jeff Garlin

Conan O’Brien and Jeff GarlinCredit: J.Sciulli/WireImage

Conan O’Brien and Jeff Garlin lived together in Chicago, an experience Garlin touched on in an interview with Esquire. “He was a great roommate,” the Curb Your Enthusiasm star said of O’Brien. “I was the bad roommate. My bedroom had air conditioning and I rarely invited anyone in there. He was not happy about it, because his room was really hot. And I used to wake him up all the time to make him do impressions to make me laugh. I love the guy.”

On a 2017 episode of O’Brien’s late-night show, the host recalled one of Garlin’s “bad roommate” antics. “I’d be fast asleep, it would be 3 in the morning, he would kick my door open and say ‘It’s pudding pop time,’” O’Brien said.

11 of 20

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Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve

Robin Williams and Christopher ReeveCredit: Steve Sands/AP

Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve became friends and roommates when they both attended Juilliard. “I think in him I saw a kind of Greek god. Ivy League college, the studliest of studly,” Williams recalled of Reeve in a 2014 interview with GQ. “I think it was literally at first symbiotic, hoping for the fallout of girls that would go for him.”

Their friendship famously continued for many years, until the Superman star died in 2004 at age 52. Williams died a decade later, at 63. “I was kind of his fool. He had a great laugh, and it was fun to make him laugh,” Williams continued. “And we both came into Juilliard as master students, and that bound us together. Then going through traumas together. I think I helped lighten him up, and he helped give me some discipline. We went through the same wild times in New York, hitting everything.”

12 of 20

Brad Pitt and Jason Priestley

Brad Pitt attends the Seventh Annual Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon Kick-Off Cocktail Reception on Jan. 14, 1988 at Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills; Jason Priestley at the 90th Birthday Party For Helen Hayes at the Plaza Hotel in New York CityCredit: Ron Galella/Getty(2)

Jason Priestley and Brad Pitt roomed together in their early heartthrob days, though their living situation sounds anything but dreamy. “Brad wasn’t as bad as my other roommate, who was an absolute disaster, but Brad was okay,” Priestley said during a 2024 appearance on Live With Kelly and Mark. “We used to play this game, all of us, to see who could go the longest without showering. I think about it now, I’m like ‘Dude, how disgusting! What were you thinking?’”

Asked who would “win” the contest, the Beverly Hills, 90210 star said, “Brad, always Brad. I don’t think he does that anymore, but back then, he could go a long time without showering.”

13 of 20

Jamie Dornan and Eddie Redmayne

Jamie Dornan and Eddie Redmayne at W Magazine’s Golden Globes party in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2015Credit: Donato Sardella/Getty

When Jamie Dornan and Eddie Redmayne lived together around 2009, they were also part of an enviable friend group that included fellow British actors Andrew Garfield, Robert Pattinson, and Charlie Cox. “Garfield and Robert were always around, and Charlie Cox,” Dornan recalled in a 2022 interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “I mean, there’s loads of us who actually ended up going on to do pretty well for ourselves. But at the time we... we weren’t. We were pretty, yeah, pretty messy.”

“Eddie’s been one of my best mates for a long time, and now we’ve got, you know, five kids between us and we’re very much more sort of together people and stable people, probably,” the Fifty Shades of Grey star added. “But we had a lot of fun then.”

14 of 20

Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames

Stanley Tucci at the premiere of ‘Trees Lounge’ in 1996; Ving Rhames at the premiere of ‘Striptease’ in 1996Credit: Ron Galella/Getty; Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/Getty

You might’ve guessed that Ving Rhames isn’t the Pulp Fiction star’s real name (it’s Irving). “Ving” was a nickname given to him by his old college roommate — none other than one Stanley Tucci.

“Stanley Tucci started calling me Ving on campus [at SUNY Purchase] where we were both studying drama, and then it just stuck,” Rhames told AARP. “And we were like college roommates. We had a good relationship, and I really respect him as an actor.”

In a separate interview with The Daily Beast, Tucci was asked if he should receive royalties anytime Rhames answers to his nickname. “I should,” Tucci said, joking. “It’s an outrage!”

15 of 20

David Lynch and Peter Wolf

David Lynch in London on March 7, 1984; Peter Wolf performs with The J. Geils Band at the Pinkpop Festival on May 26, 1980Credit: William Karel/Getty; Gie Knaeps/Getty

Before he fronted the J. Geils Band, Peter Wolf attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where his first roommate was none other than future legendary filmmaker David Lynch. “There was no talk of cinema whatsoever then,” Wolf told The Guardian. “We were truly the odd couple. David came from the preppie world and was into the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons while I was this debauched person from Greenwich Village who listened to Thelonious Monk.”

“He was supposed to be a painter, but he never painted! And it really pissed me off,” Lynch said of Wolf in an interview with LA Weekly. “So the first day he moved in, that night we went with a friend with his pickup truck and drove from Boston to New York, specifically to get his record collection, which he brought up. Filled the whole pickup.”

“And he’d play 10 seconds of Thelonious Monk or 10 seconds of Miles Davis or whatever,” Lynch continued, “like he wasn’t on speed, but it was like he was, so he was totally into it. Music was his thing.”

16 of 20

Marianne Williamson and Laura Dern

Marianne Williamson; Laura DernCredit: Maury Phillips/WireImage

At a 2024 event to support Marianne Williamson’s political campaign, Laura Dern recalled their stint as roommates when the actress was 17 years old and Williamson was in her 30s. “I was going to be a rebel, finally,” Dern said. “I got an apartment in Hollywood, so I had to find a roommate…and I found Marianne Williamson. I had all these ideas of what our life was going to look like, and it was like, two chicks in Hollywood.”

According to the Big Little Lies star, the reality was a little different. “Marianne held prayer groups in our living room,” she added.

17 of 20

Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell

Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell at the Governor’s Ball following the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on Aug. 27, 2006Credit: Vince Bucci/Getty

Before they starred together on The Daily Show, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell were roommates who performed together at Chicago’s Second City. Asked about Carell’s many talents during an appearance on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, Colbert said, “I’ve worked with him since 1988. I mean, we roomed together practically for 10 years and I don’t know what it is.”

The duo reminisced about their longtime friendship on a 2019 episode of The Late Show, when Colbert invited Carell into his “personal space” — a cardboard box — to have a more intimate chat. “We’ve known each other for 30 years,” Colbert said. “Honestly, Steve, what was your first impression of me?”

“Well, if I’m completely honest, you were very handsome,” Carell replied. “You were talented, intelligent, and there was a certain joie de vivre that you had that was different from the other guys at Second City.” The Rooster star then turned the question around on Colbert, asking, “What was your first impression of me?”

“He is going to be so handsome in his late 50s,” Colbert quipped.

18 of 20

Ewan McGregor and Jude Law

Ewan McGregor and Jude Law at the opening night of ‘Little Malcolm And His Struggle Against The Eunuchs’ at the Comedy Theatre on Jan. 21, 1999Credit: Dave Benett/Getty

Back in the ’90s, Ewan McGregor and Jude Law roomed together while they were just getting started in their acting careers. In a 2024 interview, Law recalled how thrilled he and their other roommate, fellow actor Jonny Lee Miller, were when McGregor landed the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels.

“I remember obviously the excitement we all had for him and him going off to shoot it,” Law said. “I think he shot it in Australia and [I remember] him being able to secretly tell us, like, little details.”

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McGregor reflected on their time as roommates in a chat with Men’s Journal, in which he recalled how crowded their place became with the addition of the actor’s older brother and Miller’s then-girlfriend, Angelina Jolie. “[My brother] was living with me and Jude and Jonny and occasionally Angelina,” McGregor said. “For six months, he had to work in the Intelligence Department. He’d come back in his suit from the war office to this, like, chaos. He worked for the Ministry of Defence! He shouldn’t have been around some of the things….”

As the actor trailed off, the interviewer asked, “Like what? Drugs?” to which McGregor replied, “Well, things like that, you know... It was pretty hectic in there.”

19 of 20

Matt Bomer and Lee Pace

Matt Bomer and Lee Pace at ‘The Normal Heart’ on Broadway at the Golden Theater on April 30, 2011Credit: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

Matt Bomer and Lee Pace’s friendship dates back to when the two actors were teenagers. “I’ll tell you how long I’ve known Lee Pace,” Bomer told GQ. “I’ve known him since he was shorter than me, when he was 14 and I was 15.” Bomer gave Fellow Travelers costar Jonathan Bailey a tour of the West Village in New York for the publication, in which he revealed that he and Pace shared a one-bedroom apartment in the early 2000s.

20 of 20

Burt Reynolds and Lee Corso

Burt Reynolds at the Deauville Film Festival in France on Sept. 7, 2001; Lee Corso at the Auburn vs. Tennessee game in Atlanta on Dec. 4, 2004Credit: David Lefranc/AFP/Getty; Rex Brown/WireImage

Burt Reynolds roomed with ESPN’s Lee Corso, who reflected on the Smokey and the Bandit star’s earlier aspirations of becoming a professional football player when they attended Florida State University. “He had a dream of playing in the NFL,” said Corso. “He loved football.”

“We were friends 64 years, and it started when we were teammates at Florida State,” Corso continued. “He became the world’s biggest movie star, but he never forgot his old teammates at Florida State. We were close. Good and bad times. But especially in the bad times, we were the closest.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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