18 celebrities you never knew were housemates

Just like us mere mortals, celebs have to house-share when they’re starting out on the road to fame and fortune.

Sometimes they even end up rooming with another soon-to-be celebrity, as this little lot show.

Matthew Rhys and Ioan Gruffudd

These two actors were friends from school days back in Wales and, once in London, they ended up living together for 12 years.

First up was a flat share in Cricklewood with another Royal Academy of Dramatic Art student. Then, once the roles – and money – came rolling in, they bought a place together down the road in West Hampstead.

Perhaps they spent all their cash on the house, as décor in the early days was minimal with just a couple of inflatable sofas.

Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling

OK, so this duo were a bit young for a party pad like Rhys and Gruffudd’s, but the two stars did once technically live together. Young Gosling moved into Justin’s family home while they were appearing as Mouseketeers on The Mickey Mouse Club.

Rebel Wilson and Matt Lucas

Real life mimicked the big screen in this housemate pairing as the two shared a house in both hit comedy Bridesmaids and off screen. They lived in LA together and during that time, got on famously. Lucas told the BBC, "We've never really fallen out over anything, not even the basics.”

Rebel bought her own house three years later, but the pair remain firm friends.

Brad Pitt and Jason Priestly

Back in 1987, before Thelma & Louise and Beverley Hills 90210, Pitt and Priestly roomed together. In his 2015 memoirs, Priestly recalls the pair living off ramen noodles, Marlboro Lights and cheap beer. The pair were not only competing for similar roles on the big screen, but also against each other in the flat.

“Just for fun, we used to have competitions over who could go the longest without showering and shaving,” Priestley recalled in his autobiography. “Brad always won. Having to go on an audition meant cleaning up, which is what usually put an end to the streak.”

James Corden and Dominic Cooper

Before this pair hit the big-time in America, they were just struggling actors trying to get by. They became close friends after appearing at the National Theatre in the History Boys and ended up sharing a flat for several years. They weren’t very domesticated though. Appearing as a guest on Corden’s Late Late Show, Cooper revealed they only had one piece of cutlery: a spatula.

“I remember a really depressing evening where he caught me,” Cooper recalled on the show. “He came home, and I was just eating baked beans with the spatula.”

It wasn’t all doom, gloom and limited cutlery though – Cooper actually introduced Corden to his future wife, Julia.

Ed Byrne and Dara O’Brien (amongst others)

Owning a sizeable pad in Muswell Hill meant that in his single days, comedian Ed Byrne’s house was a popular crash pad for many an up-and-coming comedian. Speaking on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time, fellow comic JJ Whitehead said he was Ed’s “couch Canadian” after he crashed there frequently – and he wasn’t the only funny man to make the most out of Ed’s hospitality.

“It's quite a few people who've come to stay, particularly in times when I was single - I don't really like living on my own,” explained Byrne to podcast host Kate Thornton.

“JJ stayed there quite a few times. Andrew Maxwell lived with me almost solidly for about a year, maybe even longer. When Dara O'Brien first started forays into the London circuit, he would come and stay with me.”

“It was very much the party house,” said JJ. “I mean I did have my own place. I think I was living in like Walthamstow at the time, but what was the point in going home between parties?”

Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve

They played two very famous aliens – Mork and Superman – but that wasn’t all these legendary actors had in common. In 1973, as freshmen at Julliard School in New York City, the actors were paired as roommates, leading to a lifelong friendship that Reeve’s widow Dana, described as “closer than brothers”.

Jamie Dornan and Eddie Redmayne

Now this is one house share we’d have liked to have had a room in. The two actors decided to go to LA together to seek their fame and fortune. Speaking on Good Morning America, Redmayne revealed living with the Fifty Shades star was like living with a puppy.

"He has more energy than any human you’ve ever met," said Redmayne. “It was like having a puppy. You'd have to let him outside. And friends who'd come for tea would see him doing star-jumps in the garden and they'd ask me, 'What is he doing?'"

His hyperactivity didn’t dent their friendship though – the pair still holiday together with their families.

Shaun Ryder and Bez

The Happy Monday bandmates first lived together in 1983 in Salford, just 10 miles from the legendary Haçienda. Bez was homeless when Shaun offered him his sofa, and the pair went on to form a friendship that has lasted through the years.

“It was a nocturnal flat,” Bez told The Guardian “We rolled in from the Haçienda every night at 3am or 4am and slept most of the day. It was a sorry state; leftover beer bottles, cigarettes. I don’t think the landlady was very happy.

“It was a great time of life for us; we had this shared dream of making it as a band. We became a successful band and our friendship has survived till today.”

Ed Byrne and JJ Whitehead talk about the worst lies they’ve ever told, why comedians are worriers and why the Edinburgh Fringe is so important to them both on the latest episode of White Wine Question Time. Listen on iTunes and Spotify now.