Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony at the 2011 Grammy Awards. Photo / Getty Images
Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony at the 2011 Grammy Awards. Photo / Getty Images
Imagine having to work with your ex … wouldn't be ideal, would it.
But that's exactly what some of Hollywood's biggest stars have been forced to do. The most recent example is Game of Thrones star Lena Headey who refused to appear on-screen with co-star Jerome Flynn aftera nasty real-life breakup.
Which other stars have found themselves in this awkward situation?
Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper
The two actors hit it off on the set of Mamma Mia! in 2008 and ended up dating for three years.
But the relationship ended when Seyfried discovered Cooper was still seeing his ex.
"I got my heart broken pretty hard," Seyfried told Elle in 2011. "I was just kind of foolishly thinking that the two of them were done, and Dom and I were involved."
Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Photo / Supplied
Fast forward to 2018, and Cooper and Seyfried found themselves working together again on Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.
Cooper told Vanity Fair it wasn't awkward working with his ex again, but he did say co-star Cher judged him pretty hard over his past relationship with Seyfried.
"She (Cher) took one look at me and didn't trust me at all — and told me so herself, which I laughed out loud at," he said.
"After Amanda made it clear that we used to, once upon a time, be together, Cher said (to Seyfried), 'You dodged a bullet there'," Cooper recalled.
Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult
Actors Nicholas Hoult (left) and Jennifer Lawrence attend a cocktail reception during Amber Lounge Fashion Monaco 2012. Photo / Getty Images
They met on the set of X-Men: First Class in 2010 and dated until August 2014. But the two actors continued to work together on the X-Men movies after they split.
In 2015, Lawrence told People magazine: "I was also in a relationship with somebody for five years, and that was my life. So my life was this person and these movies, and we broke up around the same time that I wrapped those movies.
"Being 24 was this whole year of, 'Who am I without these movies? Who am I without this man?'"
Lawrence addressed the split again in a 2018 interview with Marc Maron and said it wasn't awkward working with her ex.
"I have a theory: I think it's because I'm blunt," she told Maron on his podcast. "I don't think that you can have any sort of bad relationship with anybody if you're just blunt.
"Everybody always knows how you feel at all times, and there's no lying, it's just honesty. Everybody's a good guy to each other. All my boyfriends have been wonderful."
FYI — Lawrence and Hoult will both star in the new X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix, which hits cinemas on June 6.
Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan
Actors Laura Dern (left) and Kyle MacLachlan attend the For Your Consideration event for Showtime's 'Twin Peaks' at Paramount Theatre on May 2, 2018. Photo / Getty Images
The two exes found themselves working together in the 2017 reboot of Twin Peaks after dating for three years in the 1980s.
MacLachlan told Ellen it was "weird" to work with Dern so many years after their relationship ended.
"We had this scene that we had to do together — we both knew going in — which was going to require some nakedness on both our parts," he said.
"It's very funny because (director David Lynch) would sit down and say, 'OK, this is what we're gonna do'. He talks you through it, so you feel pretty comfortable.
"And then you sit down, and Laura and I were kind of like, 'OK, here we go'. Welcome back, 25 years later … Yeah, it was weird. We had a couple of laughs for sure."
Blake Lively and Penn Badgley
Penn Badgley and Blake Lively were an item for three years. Photo / Getty Images
The Gossip Girl stars dated from 2007 to 2010 but did their best to hide their relationship.
"I remember there was one point where we were just afraid of how our personal lives overlapping our work life could be perceived by our bosses," Lively told Vanity Fair.
"(But then) we were like, 'Oh no, that's exactly what they want'. They wanted us all to date. They wanted us all to wear the same clothes that we're wearing on the show. They wanted that because then it fed their whole narrative. People could buy into this world."
After they split, Lively and Badgley continued to work together on the show for another two years.
"We were constantly professional to be honest, and we should both pat ourselves on the back because anything is complicated in that way … and we handled it," Badgley told talk show host Andy Cohen.
Their professionalism was also praised by Gossip Girl's co-producer who told Vanity Fair he didn't discover for months Lively and Badgley had split.
"They kept the breakup hidden from the crew, which you could never do now," Joshua Safran said. "I don't even know how they did it.
"They kept it from everybody, which is a testament to how good they are as actors. Because they did not want their personal drama to relate to the show."
Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony at the 2011 Grammy Awards. Photo / Getty Images
After seven years of marriage, Lopez and Anthony split up in 2011. But the exes, who have two kids together, continued to work with one another.
In 2012, they both appeared on TV show Q'Viva! The Chosen, with Anthony saying at the time: "We're just meant to be in each other's lives on different levels. This is a long story, it's not a short story. Marriage was just one chapter … And kids are another. We've got each other for life."
Lopez, who is now engaged to Alex Rodriguez, later worked with Anthony again for a Spanish album in 2017. She told Live With Kelly at the time she was initially worried about working with her ex.
"At first I was like, 'We're good with the kids and everything, but if we start working together, are we gonna start going at each other again?'" Lopez said. "And it's been awesome. Honestly, I think it's even helped our relationship."
