Hollywood has a whole new version of the power couple rising in full force: mother-daughter duos who are taking over the big screen. These days, you won’t just find their names paired together in headlines. These powerful ladies are teaming up, making movie magic, and adding even more star power to their household names.
While some mother-daughter duos like Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson prefer to keep their work separate, others are all about sharing the spotlight. After all, it’s about who you know, right? From Meryl Streep to Demi Moore and Jada Pinkett Smith, most Hollywood moms can’t wait to work with their daughters as they grow up. I mean, starring in a movie with your mom definitely sounds like the ultimate family bonding experience. Just ask Uma Thurman and her daughter Maya Hawke – they were absolutely magic together in 2022’s The Kill Room!
So, in honor of all our favorite famous mother-daughter duos out there, check out all the ones who’ve worked together on film together below. And who knows, many of these might surprise you!
A version of this article was originally published in September 2017.
Uma Thurman & Maya Hawke
Maya Hawke, the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, has shared the screen with both her parents. With Thurman, they starred together in the 2023 thriller-comedy The Kill Room.
“I love working with both of them, they’re really awesome,” she told Live With Kelly and Ryan. “They’re just amazing at their jobs.”
Billie Lourd & Carrie Fisher
Billie Lourd and Carrie Fisher shared an incredibly strong bond. And when Lourd’s star in Hollywood started to rise, it only seemed natural that she’d join her mom in a galaxy far, far away. Although they shared hardly any scenes together, Lourd and Fisher both starred in the latest Star Wars trilogy — The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
Following her mom’s tragic death in 2016, Lourd penned a touching essay for Time about inheriting her mom’s legacy. “Losing my mom is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through,” she wrote. “I lost my best friend. My little lady in the TV. My Momby. And I inherited this weird, intimidating thing called her legacy. Suddenly I was in charge of what would come of her books, her movies, and a bunch of other overwhelming things. I was now the keeper of Leia.”
Annie Starke & Glenn Close
Annie Starke has actually co-starred alongside her mom, Oscar-nominated actress Glenn Close, more than once! The first time the two acted in the same film was in 2011’s Albert Nobbs, in which Starke appeared as a chocolate shop waitress while her mother portrayed the title character.
In 2017, Starked played the younger version of her mom’s character in the film The Wife — where the mother-daughter pair’s likeness definitely came in handy. “The character was a real collaborative effort between mum and me — it would have been impossible to do otherwise if we hadn’t sat ’round the table discussing every little nuance, since we’re playing the same character,” Starke toldThe National.
Gwyneth Paltrow & Blythe Danner
Huffington Post may have dubbed Blythe Danner “Hollywood’s Favorite Mother,” but she really is Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom in real life. The two acted alongside one another in 2003’s Sylvia, in which they played mother and daughter on screen.
The two are also extremely close off-screen. In an interview with The Sunday Morning Herald, Danner gushed, “She has taught me more than I have taught her, she’s an extraordinary mother, there is nothing she cannot do. She is so extraordinary. I am so proud of both of my children. I think what you want is for your children to always find their passion in life, and they both have.”Kyra Sedgwick & Sosie Bacon
Kyra Sedgwick and Sosie Bacon worked together in the 2017 Lifetime movie Story of a Girl. Sedgwick made her directorial debut on the project, and Bacon starred as a girl whose life changes forever when a video of her is released online.
The two also stayed close during filming, sharing an apartment together and keeping the conversation open so criticisms didn’t hit too harshly.
“It’s really hard to know that your mother is looking at you in a critical way,” Sedgwick said to Bacon in an interview with Glamour. “You and I have had issues about this in the past. If I ever look at you too long, you’re like, ‘What are you looking at?’ I am your director, so I had to look at you critically. One of the things that’s hardest as an actor is you are being critiqued constantly, and having your mother critiquing you can be challenging.”
Meryl Streep & Mamie Gummer
Mamie Gummer and Meryl Streep worked together for the first time on the 2015 film Ricki and the Flash. “I don’t know if I could have done it with anyone else,” she explained to The Telegraph. “It would have been very hard with a stranger to unleash that degree of emotion without worrying. But I know my mom is a professional and she knows me so well.”
Dakota Johnson & Melanie Griffith
When Dakota Johnson was just a young girl, she acted alongside her mom Melanie Griffith in the film Crazy in Alabama. As we all know, the acting bug stuck ever since.
Demi Moore & Rumer Willis
As a young girl, Rumer Willis made her film debut in 1995’s Now and Again with her mother, Demi Moore. She then starred alongside Moore again the following year in Striptease
“I love being able to work with her and just share that part of my life with her,” Willis told Extra TV of sharing the screen together. “It’s really fun.”
Schuyler Fisk & Sissy Spacek
Schuyler Fisk appeared in some of her mom’s movies, Trading Mom and The Long Walk Home, as a young girl. She then took a break from the front of the camera and focused on her music career. Fisk wrote songs for movies like Dear John, Penelope and Safe Haven.
In 2022, Fisk came out of her acting break and co-starred with her mom in Sam & Kate.
“I’m all about the advice. I respect my parents and their commitment to their art and I take all the advice — I love it,” Fisk told People of her parents when their movie came out. “I look up to them and I admire them and I respect their careers and their choices and their dedication and work ethic. Any advice they can give, I’m happy.”
Hallie Meyers-Shyer & Nancy Meyers
Reese Witherspoon’s 2017 movie Home Again was brought to you by mother/daughter duo Hallie Meyers and Nancy Meyers.
“I think we were able to talk to each other in a way that we communicate so easily,” Hallie said in an interview with W Magazine. “That was actually really helpful when you can just look at somebody and talk to them and really quickly just say what you mean. There’s not a lot of time on a film set, so for us to have that relationship is just so nice because she was able to just tell me super quickly, super honestly, and it was so helpful.”Angelina Jolie & Vivienne Jolie-Pitt
Little Vivienne Jolie-Pitt got to make her acting debut alongside her mom, Angelina Jolie, in 2014’s Maleficent because she was the only child who wasn’t afraid of Jolie in her costume.
“We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors,” Jolie told Entertainment Weekly of her and her ex-husband, Brad Pitt. “That’s not our goal for Brad and I at all but the other 3- and 4-year-old [performers] wouldn’t come near me. It had to be a child that liked me and wasn’t afraid of my horns and my eyes and my claws. So it had to be Viv.”Susan Sarandon & Eva Amurri
Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri acted alongside one another when Martino was at the beginning of her career. They shared the screen for 2008’s Middle of Nowhere and 2002’s The Banger Sisters. But now, Martino is forging her own path.
“I think what I kind of moved forward from was the struggle and hustle of it,” Martino told the Today Show of her career. “I just wanted to be putting my energy into something I felt was just constructing something more positive in my life and for my daughter, especially.”Laurie Simmons & Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham was inspired by her mother’s art career to create her first film, Tiny Furniture. And who better to include in the movie than her inspiration?
On her role in the film as matriarch Siri, Dunham’s mom, Laurie Simmons, said, “It’s a little bit painful because I still find Siri to be a sort of excruciating character and I give lots of credit to my daughter for getting me to go to that place, to be that person in the film,” she told The World. “Of course, people who saw the film and were confused about it and knew that I was her real mother just assume that that’s who I am. … I do feel sort of embarrassed. I don’t know how I even did that.”Leslie Mann & Iris and Maude Apatow
Leslie Mann enlisted the help of her daughters Maude and Iris for her films Knocked Up and This Is 40 with producer hubby Judd Apatow.
“With Maude and Iris, I just feel lucky that I get to be with them all day, but it’s also hard because I’m Mom and I’m also working,” Mann told The Hollywood Reporter. “So if they’re having problems or they hurt themselves or they’re fighting with each other, I have to deal with that and put out that fire and I have to work, so it’s like double the amount of work.”
In 2022, Iris also starred in The Bubble with her mom.
Vanessa Redgrave & Natasha Richardson
Shortly before her unexpected death in 2009, Natasha Richardson starred alongside her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, in 2007’s Evening.
In an interview about the film, Richardson said the dynamic between them came through in the film: “You’re bringing all your history and relationship difficulties, love, all that’s for free, in a way, and it was just very painful to imagine her dying.”Diane Ladd & Laura Dern
Diane Ladd and Laura Dern have worked together many times throughout their career, including on the films Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose and the HBO show Enlightened.
When asked about the pros and cons of working with her mother, Dern said, “The amazing gift of [Enlightened] is that the con no longer exists. It did with youth, and now, entering my 40s, I can enjoy her. Now it’s purely about the artistic experience. It’s been seamless. Now that I’m a grown-up, I can enjoy the woman. I was always afraid every choice she made reflected on me, but I was a kid, 19, 20. It’s a refreshing and amazing experience. When you look into your own mother’s eyes, there is nothing but the truth.”Willow Smith & Jada Pinkett Smith
The entire Smith clan has a close-knit relationship that they share on- and off-screen. Though Willow and Jada have yet to act in a live-action film together, they did both lend their voices to the animated film Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa as the younger and older version of Gloria the hippo.
Leave a Comment