So I just watched the latter half series finale of Xena: Warrior Princess on Oxygen (or possibly WE (or maybe Lifetime (okay, so I don’t actually know which is which))). I hadn’t seen it in years, so I sat down to admire the scrumptiousness that is Renee O’Connor. (If you’re not half in love with Gabrielle, there’s something wrong with you.) Anyway, watching it, I was struck, as I always was, by the chemistry between the two leads. Whether you were a subtexter or not, the performances of Lucy Lawless and the lovely Renee were entirely convincing; you couldn’t help but believe that they were in love on an emotional level, if not necessarily a physical one.
At the same time, TNT (or possibly Spike (or was it TBS?)) was playing Angel. Glancing at that, I recalled how unconvinced I was that Angel and Cordelia were ever genuinely in love. Apart from the fact that I thought it was a bad idea, I just didn’t buy it. It’s not that Charisma Carpenter can’t act, either, or that David Boreanez can’t do the whole glowery brooding lost-in-love thing. It’s just that the two of them didn’t have 1/10000th the chemistry of Lawless & O’Connor.
Which of course brings me to the point of the thread. What are the best–and worst–examples of onscreen chemistry you can name?
There is zero chemistry between Chloe & Jimmy on “Smallville.”
The pairing of Rachel Frame & Mac Cory was totally unplanned on the soap “Another World.” During their first scene together, the production team noticed a real chemistry and changed the story, creating a great soap couple.
Speaking of soap couples, Doug & Julie on Days of Our Lives have great on screen chemistry, mostly because the actors are a real couple off screen. You just know Bill & Susan Hayes are deeply in love, even after these many many years.
I found the chemistry in Romancing the Stone to be fairly true and believable.
Also I was left wanting more in Batman Returns…the innuendoes and back-and-forth dialogue was fairly hot.
I can’t think of any worst right now. I’ll be back though.
Funny you talk about Angel in the OP, because we always thought Buffy and Angel were laughable. Not only did they have no chemistry, could you imagine a more boring couple? We kept thinking we hated Angel, and then he’d speak to some other character, anybody else, and we’d say, hey, I kinda like that guy. They had anti-chemistry. And somehow the writers really, really liked that plot line. Sigh.
As for non romantic love/chemistry (fanfic notwithstanding), few relationships could ever hope to beat (imho, ymmv) the holy trinity of Kirk/Spock/Bones.
NoClueBoy, you’re right - but not necessarily in just romance, either. The charisma and the connection those three had was never matched by any other Star trek match-up. They kept trying to give Riker a personality and failing. Sisko didn’t need anyone else. And I never really watched voyager, but I can’t remember any good chemistry there either.
I don’t know what it was called, but I was watching a black and white film a while back in which there was a couple; I think he was a detective of some sort, and they were both drinking all the time and exchanging smooth, witty/endearing reparte. I was struck at how well the couple worked together on stage.
Good: Han and Leia. Maybe the best thing, in terms of acting, about the first two Star Wars movies. Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace. The attraction between them was palpable, even as they went from awkward to too-close in a very short amount of screen time. Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt in As Good as it Gets. Paradoxically, chemistry between the leads is the weak point of many romantic movies. This one is an exception.