Cast Incest

"When you guys first came in, we were as wholesome as the family in The Brady Bunch. Now we're as dysfunctional and incestuous as the cast of The Brady Bunch."

— Abed, Community, "Romantic Expressionism"

Cast Incest is a variant of Romance on the Set, where two actors from a TV series or film start dating in real life, after they've been playing family members in the show. Or maybe they were cast into a part specifically because they were already dating/married.

Sometimes it can come from a bad Actor Allusion if two people are playing a couple in a production when they had previously played family members or vice versa.

For the far squickier inversion, see Incestuous Casting.

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Examples:

Film

• In 2017 Mark Hamill revealed that he and Carrie Fisher "[made] out like teenagers" during the filming of A New Hope, though the two weren't revealed to be playing brother and sister until two films later, in Return of the Jedi.
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off: On-screen siblings Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey dated after appearing in this film together. The actors who played their parents, Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward, met on the film and were married for several years.
• Blades of Glory: Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, who play the sibling ice skating duo, were married in real life when the film came out and were together well before the film was made. And it's not exactly platonic in the film either.
• Mrs. Miniver: Greer Garson married Richard Ney, who was her on-screen son.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: In the early years, it was believed that Georgie Henley (Lucy Pevensie) had a Precocious Crush on Skandar Keynes (Edmund Pevensie), due to the fact that she constantly mentioned him in the audio commentaries, tried to attract his attention, and said how she missed him the most. The movie's producers and executors even named one of the audio commentaries Georgie loves Skandar. It doesn't help that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader puts a lot of Incest Subtext between the two.
• Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen in Twilight, was seen dating his co-star Nikki Reed, who plays Rosalie Hale, his adoptive sister in the movie. Made even funnier by the fact that, in the book, their characters were supposed to fall for each other but never did.
• Nikki Reed also dated for two years Victor Rasuk, who played her onscreen brother in the movie Lords of Dogtown.
• Loverboy (not the one with Patrick Dempsey): Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, who are married in real life, played father and daughter. No wonder the former's character is screwed up.

• The Sound of Music:
  • Charmian Carr, who played Liesl, admitted she had a crush on her onscreen father, Christopher Plummer. Plummer would admit the feeling was mutual, but never went beyond flirtation.^note This is not nearly as creepy as it sounds; Charmian was twenty-one during filming, only a little over a decade younger than the 34-year-old Plummer.
  • Nicholas Hammond, who played Friedrich, apparently had a penchant for precocious crushes, because he later admitted to, at all of fourteen, being infatuated with both Julie Andrews (whom he had seen live in the West End as Eliza Doolittle on her last night in the role several years earlier and carried a torch for ever since) and Charmian Carr, who played oldest von Trapp daughter Liesl. As noted above, though, Carr only had eyes for her onscreen father, Christopher Plummer.
• In House of D, a semi-autobiographical film written and directed by David Duchovny, the Duchovny character's neglectful, alcoholic, pill-popping mother was played by his then wife Téa Leoni. Richard Roeper described this as "a bit of casting that would knock Freud off his chair".
• Noted on the DVD commentary for The Squid and the Whale: Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels play lovers, which squicked out fans of their previous collaboration as a father and daughter on Fly Away Home.
• Tom Felton has admitted to having had a crush on Helena Bonham Carter, his onscreen aunt in the Harry Potter franchise.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron: In an inverted Actor Allusion example, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were cast as the twin siblings Wanda and Pietro Maximoff despite playing a married couple the last time they worked together in Godzilla (2014).
• In 2014, Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort play a brother and sister in Divergent. In the same year, they also played a couple who fall in love in The Fault in Our Stars. Both joked about this while accepting their MTV Movie Award for Best Onscreen Kiss in 2015.
• Yeo Yann Yann and Koh Jia Ler play mother and son in the Singaporean film Ilo Ilo and are in a Teacher/Student Romance in Wet Season. Both films were directed by Anthony Chen.

Literature

• Jaine Austen Mysteries: In-Universe in Last Writes — Quinn Kirkland is revealed to have slept with his co-star Vanessa Dennis, who plays his niece on the Show Within a Show Muffy and Me.

Live Action TV

• Doctor Who: David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor, is married to Georgia Moffett, who played the Tenth Doctor's genetically engineered single donor child in "The Doctor's Daughter". Georgia Moffett is actually the daughter of Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor, which is the same person, but played by a different actor after several regenerations. They now have a daughter, so there is now a child out there that has the Doctor as a father and a grandfather. To sum up: A Doctor's daughter who played the Doctor's daughter in "The Doctor's Daughter" and then had the Doctor's daughter.
• Dexter: Michael C. Hall (Dexter Morgan) and Jennifer Carpenter (Debra Morgan) are playing onscreen (adopted) siblings. For a couple of years, they were married in Real Life.
• Due South: Paul Gross's wife Martha Burns played his character's mother in the series finale.
• Eureka: Salli Richardson-Whitfield's (Allison Blake) husband Dondré Whitfield guest stars as Allison's brother Marcus Blake in one episode.
• Everwood: Emily VanCamp ("Amy") and Chris Pratt ("Bright") dated in real life while being siblings on the series.
• Firefly: Summer Glau and Sean Maher played siblings on the show but dated for a short time in real life.
• Averted with Life with Derek's main actors, Michael Seater and Ashley Leggat, who played Derek and Casey respectively. The most popular rumors are that they used to date and sleep together due to the fact that their characters had too much Unresolved Sexual Tension, but none of the actors had ever confirmed such rumors. In fact, they were best friends who hung out a lot in their free time and were, unconventionally, quite touchy-feely with each other. Even after almost 10 years, with Ashley being married and Michael having other relationships, they still hang out as best friends and have fun together.
• Wizards of Waverly Place: Selena Gomez said in an interview that she actually had a crush on David Henrie, who plays her brother in the series, when they were younger. It doesn't help the fact that they seem to like each other a lot since their own characters, in the movie, appear to have Unresolved Sexual Tension problems, according to many fans. They later admitted that they used to casually date, but they didn't want to get involved into something serious, due to the fact that, well, they are Justin and Alex Russo after all.
  • Another Disney example from Disney XD's Lab Rats , Tyrel Jackson Williams admitted he had a real life precocious, "Stacy's Mom-esque", adolescent crush on the actress who played his mother, Angel Parker. ^note  Obviously there was never any relationship between them, of course, because of age, it was just a normal, teenage boy, puppy-love crush on an older woman. He admitted that as he was a young, adolescent teen with raging hormones and puberty during the filming of the show, he had a huge crush on her, especially from seeing her in previous films and TV shows that he was familiar with, before she starting playing as his mother on Lab Rats.
• Ryo Narushima (formerly Keiko Hayase) and Ryuhei Kobayashi, the actors who played the twin Hoshikawa siblings of Remi and Fumiya in Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman, dated each other while filming the series. They were married after the show ended and have since raised three children.
• Heroes: Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet) and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) dated for a time while playing an onscreen uncle and niece. They've since broken up.
• The Brady Bunch: Barry Williams (Greg) went out to dinner once with Florence Henderson, his TV (step) mom, and the media made a bigger deal out of it than it actually was. A full-fledged relationship did not come of it. There was a behind-the-scenes special that revealed that just about everyone ended up hooking up to one extent or another, usually with their counterpart.
  • Namely, Barry Williams/Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight/Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland/Susan Olsen, and according to some rumours also Maureen/Eve.
• Lost: Michael Emerson is married to Carrie Preston, who plays Ben's mother. Somewhat offset by the fact they never share screen-time with each other.
  • Ian Somerhalder (Boone) and Maggie Grace (Shannon) briefly dated.
  • This also happened to be canon incest for the characters. They're siblings.
• Brothers & Sisters had to do a serious retcon due to the sexual chemistry between the actors playing half-siblings Rebecca and Justin. Supposedly these two dated early on in the run of the show.
  • Which is especially funny as the actress playing Rebecca, Emily VanCamp, is also mentioned in the Everwood entry.
  • David Annable, who played Justin, also allegedly dated Sally Field, his onscreen mother.
• On Roswell, Jason Behr and Katherine Heigl, who played brother and sister Max and Isabel, respectively, were dating in real life.
• David Cassidy and Susan Dey, who played siblings on The Partridge Family, slept together shortly after the series ended. She had a huge crush on him; he claimed he loved her like a sister, but made an effort anyway. It didn't work out.
• Bruce Boxleitner married Kathryn Holcomb, his TV sister from How the West Was Won.
• Early on in the run of Nip/Tuck onscreen mother and son Joely Richardson (Julia) and John Hensley (Matt) were dating in real life.
• Lauren Graham and Peter Krause who play siblings on Parenthood are currently dating, which is naturally becoming a Running Gag for Lauren on media tours to joke about dating her "brother".
• In Strangers with Candy, Stephen Colbert's wife briefly appears as his character's mother in a flashback. To make things interesting, in The Movie, she's his character's wife (who was played by a different actress in the series).
• In the 80s mini-series North and South (the Second Book), Kirstie Alley and her then-husband Parker Stevenson played siblings Virgilia and Billy Hazard, respectively.
• John Travolta became romantically involved with Diana Hyland after she played his mother in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.
• Blue Bloods: Alluded to in an interview, where Tom Selleck had to remind himself not to have any chemistry with his on-screen adult daughter.
• Real-life married couple David and Tamela Mann play father and daughter on Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation: Ray Ablack briefly dated Melinda Shankar, who plays his younger sister.
• Mrs. Brown's Boys: Almost all of the main characters are played by relatives by blood or marriage of series creator Brendan O'Carroll, who also plays Mrs. Brown. Perhaps the oddest example is Jennifer Gibney, who is Brendan O'Carroll's wife in real life but plays Mrs. Brown's daughter Cathy on screen. Mrs. Brown's friend and neighbour Winnie McGoogan is played by O'Carroll's sister Ellish. Mrs. Brown's daughter-in-law, Maria Nicholson, is played by O'Carroll's daughter Fiona, while her real-life husband, Martin Delany, plays Mrs. Brown's son Trevor. Maria's husband, Dermot, is played by Paddy Houlihan, the lifelong best friend of O'Carroll's son Danny, who plays Buster Brady... and Danny's wife, Amanda Woods, plays Betty, the wife of Mrs. Brown's son Mark.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has one of a purely Actor Allusion variety: Clark Gregg and Amy Acker play love interests, having previously been cast as uncle and niece in Joss Whedon's film version of Much Ado About Nothing.
• Jason Priestley and Shannen Doherty, who were on screen twins on Beverly Hills, 90210, were involved for a short period in real life too, while filming the first season of the show.
• In most episodes of the BBC series The Supersizers Eat, the characters played by Giles Coren and Sue Perkins are husband and wife. However, the Regency episode makes their characters brother and sister. Sue lampshades this by suggesting that Giles's Regency character has incestuous feelings for hers.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Dean-Charles Chapman and Nell Tiger Free, who are the second actors for siblings Tommen and Myrcella "Baratheon" after their age-ups, are dating in real life. Fittingly, their characters on the show were themselves products of Brother–Sister Incest.
  • Likewise, Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams, who played sisters, apparently liked to kiss on set, bathe, and sleep together, though they never called themselves a couple.
• Of the Actor Allusion variety: Barry Williams and Christopher Knight, who played brothers Greg and Peter on The Brady Bunch, played a gay couple in one episode of That '70s Show.
• The Here Come the Brides episode "Next Week, East Lynne" contains an in-universe example. When Jason stars in a production of Hamlet, the actress playing Gertrude relentlessly hits on him and kisses him between scenes.
  Lockhart: Eleanor, dear, don't forget you're playing Mr. Winthrop's mother.
  Eleanor: Don't worry, Lockhart. I plan to mother him to death.
• Poldark: Eleanor Tomlinson and Harry Richardson, who played on-screen siblings Demelza Poldark and Drake Carne, dated for about a year, from mid-2017 to mid-2018, while the series was ongoing.
• Andy Samberg and Nasim Pedrad played a couple on Saturday Night Live and later siblings on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
• An In Universe Example in Kenan - Kenan met his wife Cori while working in a sitcom in which they played son and mother. The sexual tension was so noticeable, the show tanked pretty fast.

Music

• Rock duo The White Stripes were initially married when they started the band, although they amicably divorced early on in their career. Due to their Like Brother and Sister relationship, the fact that they shared a last name and similar looks they were assumed by many fans who were unaware of their history to be siblings, and the pair just went with it and presented themselves as brother and sister for years.

Professional Wrestling

• Ken Shamrock dated Alicia Webb, who portrayed his Kayfabe sister 'Ryan Shamrock'. There was even a plan to do an "incest" storyline with them, but this was dropped once Webb was released by WWE.
• Best known for her work in ECW from 1995-1998 as Beulah McGillicutty, Trisa Hayes had a short-lived role in Stampede Wrestling in the mid-1980s as Brian Pillman's "sister" Theresa, as she and Pillman had been dating in Real Life at the time.

Theater

• Rebecca Caine played Cosette in the original, 1985 London production of Les Misérables, opposite Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean, Cosette's father-substitute. Then, she was cast as Christine in the original Canadian company of The Phantom of the Opera - opposite Colm Wilkinson as the Phantom. Since the Phantom explicitly presents himself as both a father figure and love interest for Christine, this casting makes a certain amount of squicky sense.
• George Hearn (The Broadway replacement for Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd) and Betsey Joslyn (replacement for Johanna, Sweeney's daughter) were married in real life before the production. This can be seen on the tour DVD.
• Sierra Boggess played Ariel and Norm Lewis her father Triton in The Little Mermaid, and the two ended up playing Christine and Erik/the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera.
• Jasmine Cephas-Jones (Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds) and Anthony Ramos (John Laurens/Philip Hamilton) of the original broadway cast of Hamilton started dating somewhere near the start of their run of the musical. Peggy is Philip's aunt (although they never interact in the show).
• From Elisabeth: Sophie Blümel and Marjan Shaki played Hélène von Wittelsbach in the same production as their real-life husbands, Thomas Hohler and Lukas Perman. Duchess Hélène is aunt to Crown Prince Rudolf - Hohler and Perman's character.

Webcomics

• Kevin & Kell gives an In-Universe example: one arc featured Rudy's high school putting on a production of West Habitat Story, that universe's version of West Side Story. His girlfriend Fiona is cast as Maria. Rudy himself? Cast as Maria's brother Bernardo. As they put it, "awkward...". At least until Rudy forgot it was a play and slugged Edgar (Tony) for kissing Fiona. The director's response was to promptly recast him as Chino, Maria's would-be suitor. But for about a week it still counted!

Web Original

• Me and My Dick's Official Couple, Joey Richter (himself) and Sally (Jaime Lyn Beatty), can become really squicky if you remember that they played siblings Ron and Ginny Weasley A Very Potter Musical.
• In Gayle, Gayle's daughter Terry is played by Chris Fleming's girlfriend Melissa Strype. This gets played with a bit, as a couple times Gayle hallucinates that Terry is her Celeb Crush Yanni and...um...gets flirty with Terry.

  Terry: Christ, she thinks I'm Yanni again.

Western Animation

• A flashback in Axe Cop has the title character's mother voiced by Megan Mullally (who voices most of the female characters in the show). She's the wife of Nick Offerman, who plays Axe Cop.
• Happens in-universe with BoJack Horseman and his former TV co-star Sarah Lynn, who played his daughter on the Show Within a Show Horsin' Around: The two have sex with each other in one episode while under the influence.
• On The Loud House and The Casagrandes , Bobby Santiago and Carlota Casagrande, who are cousins, are voiced by Carlos PenaVega and Alexa PenaVega, who are married in real life.
• The Brazilian dub of Incredibles 2 had the Deavor siblings voiced by a real life couple.
• In-universe example in Young Justice:
  • In the episode "Terrors", Superboy and Miss Martian infiltrate Belle Reve disguised as a pair of twins. It ends with them having The Big Damn Kiss (to Icicle Jr.'s horror).
  • They pose as siblings again in "Performance", when the entire team (except Kid Flash, so there isn't another example with him and Artemis) goes undercover as a family of acrobats called "the Daring Dangers".
• On Star Trek: Lower Decks Billups' mother Queen Paolana is voiced by June Diane Raphael, wife of Billups' voice actor Paul Scheer.

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