16 Times Famous Moms & Daughters Worked Together in Film

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 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, 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. 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, however, 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 told The National.

Gwyneth Paltrow & Blythe Danner

Huffington Post may have dubbed Blythe Danner “Hollywood’s Favorite Mother,” but she is Gwyneth Paltrow’s real mother. 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 most recently on the 2015 film Ricki and the Flash, and Gummer said she wouldn’t have wanted to be in the movie with anyone else. “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

Melanie Griffith has made it clear she’s so proud of Dakota Johnson for her role in 50 Shades of Grey, but that doesn’t mean she’s ever going to watch it. Ever. (Much to Johnson’s chagrin.)

Instead, the two share their love of acting in a different way. When Johnson was just a young girl, she acted alongside her mother in the film Crazy in Alabama. Apparently, the acting bug stuck. Now, they can be seen attending red carpet events together, like the 2015 Oscars.

Rumer Willis & Demi Moore

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.
 
Now, you can see them back on-screen together in Empire. Willis said, “I love being able to work with her and just share that part of my life with her. It’s really fun.”

Schuyler Fisk & Sissy Spacek

Schyuler Fisk appeared in some of her mom’s movies, Trading Mom and The Long Walk Home, as a young girl. But she has since focused on her music career. Fisk wrote songs for movies like Dear John, Penelope and Safe Haven.

“I’m not saying I would never do acting again, because I love it, but there really is nothing compared to getting up in front of people and singing your music,” she said in an interview on a couch at the Bell House. “I love going into a dive where they have no idea who I am or haven’t heard my music and try to win them over.”

Hallie Meyers-Shyer & Nancy Meyers

This Friday, you might be planning on checking out Reese Witherspoon’s newest movie, Home Again. But what you might not have realized is that it’s 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 about their mother/daughter relationship on set. “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. That’s not our goal for Brad and I at all,” Jolie said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “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 Martino

Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri Martino acted alongside one another when Martino was beginning in 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 said 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. 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 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.”

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 film Wild at Heart and the HBO show Enlightened.
 
When asked about the pros and cons of working with her mother, Dern said, “The amazing gift of this show [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.