Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are perhaps the most legendary Hollywood couple, who attracted eyeballs with their incredible chemistry in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes.
The pair met while starring opposite each other in the movie Woman of the Year (1942) which led to the start of the most talked about relationship in Hollywood folklore. Their affair was kept a secret from the public, but most people who worked with them knew about their romance, which was hard to hide considering they worked together in eight more films after their first meeting.
It’s not easy to replicate Hepburn and Tracy’s chemistry, but Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield in some ways managed to do that.
What Spider-Man Producer Said About Emma Stone’s Love Story With Andrew Garfield
As the makers looked to revive the story of Web-Head almost a decade after the immense success of Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man, they landed on Andrew Garfield to portray Peter Parker and Emma Stone to play the part of his love interest, Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man.
What started as a professional chemistry on the movie’s set turned into flirting and pranking one another before sparks flew and they got together, eerily similar to Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
Avi Arad, the movie’s producer, noted the same, stating (via The Guardian): “The chemistry between those two is like old Hollywood, Hepburn and Tracy.”
As much as Garfield’s Spider-Man’s enthralling fight against a mysterious reptilian foe (Rhys Ifans), fans and critics alike gushed over Peter and Gwen’s on-screen chemistry. The movie was a massive financial success, grossing $758 million at the box office.
Arad partly credited the movie’s impressive performance to the ‘happy casting’.
How Spider-Man Director Reacted After Seeing the Special Chemistry Between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield
The pair went from being an on-screen couple during the early days of filming to a couple in real life before the movie hit the theaters in 2012.
However, The Amazing Spider-Man director, Marc Webb, didn’t even need that long to notice there was something special between Stone and Garfield. He told Vanity Fair:
“During the screen test, I knew that there was something there. When we did this one scene, though, where they run into each other in the hallway—it’s a very simple scene, a trope-y scene that we’ve seen in movies before. They both just brought some nervous adolescent energy to the table, and they injected such humanity into it.”
They continued dating during the filming of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and didn’t hide their affection for each other during the premier tour. In an interview with ABC News, the La La Land actress admitted:
“It’s like a dream to work with him. He’s obviously one of the greatest actors I think we have alive today, and he’s also just a remarkable human being, so I love him very much.”
In this movie, Gwen and Peter share a much more complex dynamic, as she breaks up with him in a bid to embolden her own identity and pursue her dreams. Both Stone and Garfield were once again brilliant together in front of the camera, and the sequel ($709 million globally) managed to replicate the performance of The Amazing Spider-Man at the box office.
Source: The Guardian, Vanity Fair, ABC News
