10 Hollywood co-stars who had explosive feuds and couldn't stand each other including Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Vin Diesel

While filming a scene for the hit 2000 spy film Charlie's Angels, there was an altercation between actress Lucy Liu and actor Bill Murray.

Lucy and some of the cast had worked over the weekend to smooth out the details of the scene, but Bill had been unable to attend so was unaware of the changes.

When it came to rehearsing the scene in the week, he made his displeasure at the situation known and allegedly "hurled insults" at Lucy.

"Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it," she told the Asian Enough podcast.

"Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there's no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have."

Co-star and fellow angel Drew Barrymore referred to the incident on her eponymous talk show. "What really happened was Bill was just in a – you know, comedians can be a little dark sometimes – and he just came in in a bad mood.

"What you have to know is how much Lucy stood up for herself and that was the great thing that came out of an unfortunate circumstance. She literally said, 'I do not accept that kind of behavior from you.' And we all supported her and backed her up and we moved forward."

Bill did not return for the Charlie's Angels sequel, reportedly as a result of the altercation, though Lucy since said she has "nothing against" her former co-star.

Janet starred alongside Will for the first three seasons of the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, playing his on-screen aunt, Viv. Janet did not return for a fourth season, and the character was taken over by Daphne Maxwell Reid from that point on.

At the time, Will told a local radio station: "I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air show, because I know she is going to dog me in the press.

"She has basically gone from a quarter of a million dollars a year to nothing. She's mad now, but she's been mad all along. She said once, 'I've been in the business for 10 years, and this snotty-nosed punk comes along and gets a show.' No matter what, to her, I'm just the Anti-Christ."

In response to these comments, Janet said: "He probably is responsible for my firing. He has a lot of clout. It's too bad that it’s a Black-on-Black attack. I have tried not to name names. I have more class than that.

"I wish Will would tell the truth. If you're going to talk, tell the truth. He has gotten me fired from the show, and now he's trying to get my career snatched away from me."

It took 27 years for a reconciliation and full explanation to come to light.

During the Fresh Prince reunion special on HBO Max, Janet revealed that she was both pregnant and in an abusive relationship during filming of the third season. "I was no longer laughing, smiling, joking, because there were things that were going on that nobody knew about. The cast had no idea what was going on."

To make matters worse, Janet said she was offered a "really bad deal" with her contract for the third season. "They said you've got two months and two weeks of work, and you cannot work anywhere else. That meant my salary was cut. I had a new baby and a husband who was out of work. So I said no. I did not accept their offer.

"I was never fired. So the misconception was always put out there. I was trapped. What could I do? So they said, 'Okay, we're going to recast your role.' And I said, what could I say? I was hurt deeply."

Will spoke about his own behavior in a solo interview. He said: "During that time of her pregnancy, I wasn't sensitive, I wasn't perceptive. Now that I've had three kids, I've learned some things I did not know at the time and I would do things very differently. I can see where I made the set very difficult for Janet."

The pair both apologized to each other and explained their perspective on the feud. Janet described the conversation as "healing".

Rumors of on-set drama began to swirl during the press tour for It Ends With Us, a film based on the bestselling Colleen Hoover book about an abusive relationship. Leading actress Blake and several members of the cast unfollowed the film's director and co-star Justin on social media, and did not appear on the red carpet or in any interviews with him.

In late December 2024, Blake launched a lawsuit against Justin and the film's production company, Wayfarer Studios, alleging he engaged in inappropriate on-set behavior. She also alleged that after reporting his behavior to her higher-ups, Justin hired a crisis PR team to launch a smear campaign against her, in case she ever went public with her claims.

She is suing Wayfarer Studios for creating an unsafe and toxic work environment and for being complicit in Justin's alleged behavior.

Justin has in turn sued the New York Times, who investigated the story, for fraud and libel, saying that the journalists "cherry-picked" quotes and "stripped [them] of necessary context and deliberately spliced [them] to mislead."

The NYT said in a statement that their writing was "based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article."

In August 2026, it was reported that Blake Lively was awarded $400,000 (£340,000) of the $8m (£6.9m) she tried to claim from Justin Baldoni to cover her legal fees and costs to fight a defamation case he brought.

Gillian and David starred together in the TV series The X-Files for nine years between 1993 and 2001, with Gillian playing FBI Special Agent Dana Scully and David playing agent Fox Mulder. The show returned in 2016 for two more series, despite several reports in the 90s suggesting animosity existed between its two leading actors. The protagonists later confirmed the reports were accurate.

"We've always had quite a complex relationship. You know, when you work that intensely with somebody for such a long time, I mean we were basically married to each other," Gillian explained on an episode of the Table Manners podcast.

She previously said of her co-star there were "definitely being periods when we hated each other".

David echoed a similar sentiment, telling Metro in 2008: "Familiarity breeds contempt. It's nothing to do with the other person. All that fades away and you're just left with the appreciation and love for the people you've worked with for so long. We used to argue about nothing. We couldn't stand the sight of each other."

Proof they have put their differences behind them, the duo now see each other as "family".

Another actor who did not return to a sequel after a fallout was Stormbreaker star Alex Pettyfer, who played opposite Channing Tatum in Magic Mike, the popular 2012 film about male strippers.

In 2015, Alex spoke about the issues on Bret Easton's podcast. "Channing Tatum does not like me. For many reasons. Many being my own fault.

"I had a very negative past relating to the things that I had done on movies and promotion of movies. And Channing Tatum is an extraordinarily smart businessman. I think he probably didn’t want to get into a conflict with [film director] Steven and so I was cast."

He went on to explain how his initial lack of confidence around the film affected his relationships on set.

"I didn't speak on the movie [set]. I was scared to speak. I did my work and then I sat in the corner and listened to music because I'd been told that anything I do was wrong by my reps and I was very insecure as a human being.

"That also gave me a bad rep because they said, 'Oh Alex thinks he's f***ing better than everybody else because he doesn't speak to anyone.' And that's not true. I was genuinely nervous and scared to be myself."

Issues between the leading men were exacerbated when Alex rented a room from one of Channing's friends and owed him unpaid rent.

"I all of a sudden got a very negative email from Channing, rightfully so, saying, 'Don't f*** my friends. You owe money. Pay the f***ing money. Don't be a clown.'"

Alex stated that he had had a family death and had forgotten to pay the rent, but after continued hounding by Channing's friend he refused to pay the rent at all. The animosity remained throughout filming.

Filmed for nine months in the Namib desert in Namibia, the 2015 Oscar-winning film Mad Max: Fury Road had plenty of bumps along the way as tensions escalated between A-list co-stars Charlize and Tom, leading to scenes being filmed with stunt doubles instead of with each other, and reported screaming matches on set.

In the tell-all book Blood, Sweat & Chrome, which detailed the film, writer Kyle Buchanan revealed that tensions arose between Tom and Charlize due to acting methods, timekeeping and personality differences.

Camera operator Mark Goellnicht described one incident in the book.

"The call on set was eight o'clock. Charlize got there right at eight o’clock, sat in the War Rig [her character’s truck], knowing that Tom's never going to be there at eight even though they made a special request for him to be there on time. He was notorious for never being on time in the morning. If the call time was in the morning, forget it—he didn't show up."

When Tom arrived on set three hours later, Charlize reportedly jumped out of the truck and shouted "Fine the fing c a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he's held up this crew," and "How disrespectful you are!"

Tom did not respond well. "He was quite aggressive," Mark revealed, "She really felt threatened, and that was the turning point, because then she said, 'I want someone as protection.' She then had a producer that was assigned to be with her all the time."

A female producer was flown in but barred from being on set by the film's producer.

Later, the co-stars addressed the feud. "In a weird way, we were functioning like our characters: Everything was about survival," Charlize reflected in 2015.

"The pressure on both of us was overwhelming at times," said Tom. "What she needed was a better, perhaps more experienced, partner in me. That's something that can't be faked."

In August 2016, following filming of the eighth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, Dwayne took to Instagram in a since-deleted post to vent his frustrations toward unnamed male co-stars.

He wrote: "There's no other franchise that gets my blood boiling more than this one. My female co-stars are always amazing and I love 'em. My male co-stars, however, are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand-up men and true professionals, while others don't.

"The ones that don't are too chicken s*** to do anything about it anyway. Candy a. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I'm not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling – you're right."

Following this post, Dwayne later revealed that he and his co-star had met in his trailer, arriving at the conclusion that they are different people with different approaches.

In 2017, Vin Diesel claimed the feud had been "blown out of proportion".

He told USA Today: "I protect the franchise. I protect everybody including Dwayne. I protected Dwayne more than he'll ever know. And it doesn't matter. He doesn't have to know. But he appreciates it. He knows it.

"Dwayne has only got one Vin in his life. Dwayne Johnson only has one big brother in this film world and that's me."

While the WWE wrestler did not appear to take well to these comments, and there was further back-and-forth between the stars, Dwayne later shared that he and Vin Diesel had buried the hatchet, and that Dwayne would be returning to the franchise.

"Despite us having our differences, me and Vin, we've been like brothers for years, and despite our differences, when you lead with — number one, resolve — but also you think about the future and plans that are much bigger than ourselves," he said via Instagram.

While The Notebook stole hearts and tears around the world, the film's director Nick Cassavetes later revealed it wasn't plain sailing to start off with co-stars Rachel and Ryan.

"Maybe I'm not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not. And Ryan came to me, and there's 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, 'Nick come here.' He's doing a scene with Rachel and he says, 'Would you take her out of here and bring in another actress to read off camera with me?' I said, 'What?' He says, 'I can't. I can't do it with her. I'm just not getting anything from this,'" he told VH1.

"We went into a room with a producer; they started screaming and yelling at each other. I walked out … And it got better after that, you know? They had it out … I think Ryan respected her for standing up for her character and Rachel was happy to get that out in the open. The rest of the film wasn't smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing."

Ryan and Rachel then became a couple in real life, and dated from 2005 to 2007.

The two leading men had several creative differences during the making of the 1997 thriller The Devil's Own.

"Brad developed the script. Then they offered me the part. I saved my comments about the character and the construction of the thing – I admired Brad. First of all, I admire Brad. I think he's a wonderful actor. He's a really decent guy. But we couldn't agree on a director until we came to Alan Pakula, who I had worked with before but Brad had not," Harrison told Esquire.

"Brad had this complicated character, and I wanted a complication on my side so that it wasn't just a good-and-evil battle.

"I worked with a writer – but then all the sudden we're shooting and we didn't have a script that Brad and I agreed on. Each of us had different ideas about it. I understand why he wanted to stay with his point of view, and I wanted to stay with my point of view – or I was imposing my point of view, and it's fair to say that that's what Brad felt. It was complicated. I like the movie very much. Very much."

It appears both actors were professional about their disagreement and both hold respect for each other.

The 1979 blockbuster Kramer vs. Kramer depicted a separated husband and wife locked in a tense battle over custody of their son. It turns out the tension went beyond the silver screen: Meryl and Dustin starred together in the film, and it was later revealed that Dustin took his method acting too far.

According to an unofficial biography of Meryl, Dustin slapped Meryl right before a scene. The director "heard the slap and saw Meryl charge into the hallway. We're dead, he thought. The picture's dead. She's going to bring us up with the Screen Actors Guild. Instead, Meryl went on and acted the scene."

There were a few other incidents of unplanned improvisation, and one example where Dustin threw a glass against a wall, which shocked Meryl. He also allegedly goaded Meryl by mentioning the name of her late husband before an emotional take, to provoke a reaction from the actress.

While the film did well, neither co-star reconciled.