Dynamic Duos

Today I feel like celebrating my favorite movie/tv couplings—you know, pairs of actors who for whatever reason work amazingly well onscreen.  They make magic just by feeding off each other's performance, making you believe that their separate character could, in reality, come together and behave just as the script demands.

Let's begin!

James Roday / Dulé Hill

I love these guys so much.  Shawn (Roday) is obviously the lead on the show, but Gus (Hill) cannot be taken for a mere sidekick.  They are, quite convincingly, best friends.  But not just best friends as grown ups, best friends from childhood.  They were learning to be stupid together before it even became cool (i.e., before middle school).  They're closer, and cooler, than brothers.

David Tennant / Catherine Tate

I know, I know! we're supposed to like Rose best—but I can't help it.  Catherine Tate absolutely killed it as Donna Noble, and after watching her with David Tennant I can't watch series 2 and 3 without feeling that the show just isn't . . . complete.

The fun part is that Donna and the Doctor are strictly, but easily, platonic.  There's no hint of sexual tension, they just make a great team as is:  She is the grounded to his geeky, the fire to his indignation and the sympathy to his solitude.  They both like to go places and they both care about people, but unlike his other companions, Donna is down-to-earth and straightforward.  When the Doctor tries to sound cool by getting technical, she's not afraid to roll her eyes and go, "Yeah, right."

Doctor:  "Hey, some of these books are from your future!  Don't wanna read ahead—spoilers."

Donna:  "Isn't traveling with you one big spoiler?"

(Silence in the Library)

(It's no surprise that the two actors didn't stop working together after Doctor Who.  He guest-starred in at least two sketches on the Catherine Tate show, and they co-starred in Much Ado About Nothing.)

Kate Winslet / Leonardo DiCaprio

I almost feel like I have to work hard to defend this choice because of the chick-flick stigma to Titanic, but you know what?  I'm not going to bother.  Even if you didn't enjoy the first hour of the film, you have to admit that Winslet and DiCaprio worked beautifully together.  Yeah, they're two stupid kids doing stupid things, but it's hard to believe that if his Jack and her Rose really were on the Titanic they'd be any smarter.

Clark Gable / Vivien Leigh

A match made in purgatory!  Passionate, angry, gunpowder-and-fireworks purgatory.  Scarlett O'Hara (Leigh) takes four hours' screen time to decide she has any romantic feeling for Rhett (Gable) and not, in fact, for that married guy she spends all her time running after, but it doesn't matter:  You still think of them as a couple.  They make every scene they share a memorable one.

Bill Cosby / Phylicia Rashad

Cliff and Claire were living proof that you don't need a thousand petty, dysfunctional drama clichés to make an entertaining sitcom relationship.  90% of the conflict in the marriage revolved around raising the kids responsibly and trying to find time to be alone together.  No cheating, no money mis-managing, no massive-and/or-childish-communication-failures that make it look like cheating.  Just toughing it out like mature adults.  Yes, they led believably stressful lives, and yes, they had their share of spats, but at the end of the day you could always count on the Huxtable parents to remain a team.  Mainly, as he puts it, because they're "afraid of the children."

But none of this would've been possible—and might've even seemed monotonous—without the chemistry of the stars involved.  So give a big hand to Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad.  Wherever he made the "Aren't I cute?" face she was always ready with the coy, but clearly won-over, look of "Hm, I haven't decided yet."

Kristy Swanson / Timothy Omundson

Casting really found a ringer with this one.  It's no surprise that, of all the couples on Psych, Lassiter and Marlowe were the first to go all the way.  Right from the get-go they were absolutely adorable together.

Lassiter:  "Did you find the girl I met last night???"

McNab:  "I might need a little bit more to go on, sir."

Lassiter:  "What do you mean?  What more do you need?  I told you, she's blond, and pale, and perfect, and beautiful, and perfect!—So get me a name and get me an address!!!"

Kristy Swanson's performance brings out in Omundson's a lovestruck side to Lassiter that we'd never seen before (and possibly never even imagined) yet it feels totally natural, not contrived at all.  All they have to do is smile at each other and you have a hard time remembering that they're just acting and not, in fact, madly in love.

Errol Flynn / Olivia DeHavilland

Lovers of old film will recognize these two.  Ever the swashbuckling hero and his feisty, drop-dead gorgeous beloved, they were Robin Hood and Maid Marion, Captain Blood and Arabelle Bishop, Wade Hatton and Abbie Irving, etc.  Oddly enough, only one of the eight movies in which the pair co-starred was actually tailored for the both of them, which was unusual treatment for well-known onscreen couples at the time (even more so than today).  In the other seven they were cast together simply because—well, because, let's face it, they worked brilliantly together.  They were just ridiculously, stupidly romantic.

Lara Pulver / Benedict Cumberbatch

 

Lara Pulver was, to be blunt, The Woman.  She was the perfect Irene Adler.  It's hard to tell where writing ends and acting begins, but I for one was ecstatic about the casting.  Cumberbatch and Pulver weren't the ideal romantic couple because there can be no such thing for Sherlock Holmes, but as dysfunctional intellectual flirts they take the cake.

Sherlock is already established as dry, imposing, omniscient, the very picture of intellectual invulnerability.  Enter Irene:  Devious, impish (a fact highlighted by Pulver's wonderfully childish voice) and blatantly sexual.  She is utterly convincing as the one person on earth who could pierce the Sherlockian ego and get under the detective's skin.

Martin Freeman / Amanda Abbington

Can't.  Even.

Anyone laboring under the dementia that nepotism spoils the show can leave now.  If it works, it works.  And in this case boy does it really work!!!  Amanda Abbington and Martin Freeman are the most convincing, most comfortable, most adorable Watsons one could ever imagine.  Anyone else playing Mary would feel forced or extravagant by comparison.

Though I had perfect faith in the writers to make Mary wonderful and was excited to see Freeman's real-life partner come to the show, I did wonder if it would be a bit strange for two people already romantically involved to play two different people also romantically involved—now I wonder what on earth I was worried about.  I might be imagining things, but there does seem to be a level of warmth and ease between two people who've been together for over ten years that two actors—no matter how brilliant—who are just doing a job simply cannot attain.  It's little things, subtle things, that you pick up on subconsciously; for example, if you watch closely, you might notice that Abbington and Freeman share a lot of the same facial expressions.  Simply put, you can't fake it.  This isn't just great chemistry for the sake of great chemistry, it's the real deal and it shows.

Martin Freeman / Benedict Cumberbatch

Fine.  I admit it.  This whole list may have just been an excuse to write about these two.

Both genius actors on their own (think:  The Hobbit, Star Trek Into Darkness) put them together and you have one of the best shows on television.

They seem an unlikely duo when you consider them separately.  Freeman usually stars in straightforward comedies as the "normal" guy (a description which doesn't nearly do him justice, but I promised myself I wouldn't turn this into an essay on Martin Freeman's sheer Awesomeness) while Cumberbatch tends to wind up in dark, thoughtful pieces like Wreckers, Parade's End, Stuart: A Life Backwards, Frankenstein, etc., playing . . . well, anyone and everyone, really.  And in real life (to all appearances, anyway) the two men are polar opposites, Freeman a man of mock angst and lightning wit, Cumberbatch an eternally polite (if occasionally very goofy) old soul.  Point being, you'd never expect to see them in the same show.

And yet here they are.  And ohmygosh it works so well.

Why does it work?  I dunno.  Maybe because Freeman is so studied in the art of observing the bizarre, and Cumberbatch so adept at capturing it.  Freeman's performance says, "That is so weird" and Cumberbatch answers, "You haven't seen anything yet!"  And they obviously both appreciate the weirdness; they're clearly having the time of their lives.