To cheat or not to cheat? That is the question.
When it comes to creating drama on screen, nothing fans the flames and ignites a blaze of sweet, sweet contention faster than the introduction of the archetypal cheating storyline.
Whether on the small or big screen, writers and producers will spend weeks, months and sometimes even multiple seasons to bring the protagonist and their main love interest together.
It’s the classic “will they, won’t they” trope that leaves fans begging to be put out of their misery.
And then when the characters, that the audience has been desperately rooting “to just kiss already” for years, finally seal the deal, the powers that be keep the story going by tearing the couple apart, usually by having one character cheat on the other.
But some actors in Hollywood have refused to help torture the audience and allow their character to develop a wandering eye that leads to a romp in the sack with a random lover.
Scroll down for a look at actors who have refused to cheat on their on screen soulmate.
Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing: “Friends”
Could he be any more faithful?
Matthew Perry was afraid the audience would no longer be his friends if he cheated on his on-screen wife Monica Geller, played by Courteney Cox.
After his death in October 2023, Lisa Cash, the actress cast as his would-be fling, revealed that Perry nixed a storyline that would have landed them together in bed.
“We had rehearsed it and everything, and then the day before we were shooting in front of a live audience, I was told that [Matthew] went to the writers and said the audience would never forgive him for cheating on Monica,” Cash told TMZ. “He was probably right.”
According to Cash, 54, the Season 5 episode titled “The One in Vegas: Part 1″ probably “would’ve changed possibly the course of the show and his character.”
Although the 1999 episode might have changed the trajectory of her career if the scene would have happened, Cash wholeheartedly believes Perry made the right decision.
“I think it was a good move,” Cash said. “Because they had that other thing with the Ross and Rachel ‘we were on a break,’ but Chandler and Monica weren’t on a break. This was a decision that he was gonna make to cheat on her.”
Cash ultimately appeared on the series as a flight attendant in a scene with Ross Geller, played by David Schwimmer, and Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston.
John Krasinski as Jim Halpert: “The Office”
As one half of America’s favorite couple on “The Office,” John Krasinski became a household name as Jim Halpert opposite Jenna Fischer’s Pam Beesly.
After multiple seasons of sexual tension while working alongside each other at the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Jim and Pam finally got married in Niagara Falls during Season 6 of the hit NBC sitcom. However, writers were not ready to give the fans, or the couple, their happily ever after.
After Pam gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Cecilia, and went on maternity leave, Jim was supposed to have a cliche affair with the new secretary Cathy. Krasinski wasn’t having it though.
“That’s the only time I remember putting my foot down,” Krasinski recalled in “Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office,” which was written by Brian Baumgartner and Ben Silverman. “I remember saying things that I never thought I’d say before, like, ‘I’m not going to shoot it.’”
Krasinski, who appeared on all nine seasons of the show from 2005 to 2013, felt like the cheating scandal would cause “The Office” to lose their core audience.
“My feeling is there is a threshold with which you can push our audience,” he explained in the 2021 New York Times bestseller. “They are so dedicated. We have shown such great respect to them. But there’s a moment where if you push them too far, they’ll never come back. And I think that if you show Jim cheating, they’ll never come back.”
Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz: “Fast and Furious”
Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Michelle Rodriguez felt a big responsibility to be true to herself when she took on the role of street savvy racer Letty Ortiz in the first “Fast and Furious” franchise.
“Having that suppressive mentality in your family for so long, you think about really serious life things really young,” she told the Daily Beast. “You think about the world and whether it’s owned by the Devil or by God, you think about politics, you think about the planet. You think globally; you think universally. So I felt a big responsibility coming into the game.”
So when the script called for her character to cheat on her boyfriend Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, with Brian O’Conner, played by the late Paul Walker, she nearly quit.
“It was my first Hollywood movie,” she recalled. “Imagine—I’m living the dream, I wasn’t paying attention to the script. I thought, ‘I’ll deal with it later,’ because on Girlfight when I had a problem with the script I talked to [director Karyn Kusama] about it and we worked it out on the day,” she said. “I thought it was the same thing in Hollywood. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“It was more of a Point Break idea,” she continued. “They just followed the format without thinking about the reality of it. Is it realistic for a Latin girl who’s with the alpha-est of the alpha males to cheat on him with the cute boy? I had to put my foot down.”
Thankfully, her co-star Diesel agreed and helped the “Girl Fight” actress get her way.
“I basically cried and said, I’m going to quit and, ‘Don’t sue me, please—I’m sorry, but I can’t do this in front of millions of people,’” she revealed. “My whole point in being an actress is that I thought I got to live a dream. And I don’t dream about being a slut! Do you?”
“Vin was the first one to pull me to the side while I was crying, and he just looked at me and said, ‘I got your back. Chill out and let me handle this, and you’re right — it makes me look bad anyway.’ And there you go,” Rodriguez added. “That was the beginning of the Letty fairytale.”
Honorable Mention — Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg: “You”
Unlike the other actors on the list, “You” star Penn Badgley was worried that the on-screen relationship between his character Joe Goldberg and love interest Kate Galvin would be disrespectful to his real life wife Domino Kirke.
In February 2023, the “Gossip Girl” alum revealed on his podcast Podcrushed that he asked the Netflix series’ showrunner Sera Gamble if they could cut back on the sex scenes shot for Season 4 out of respect for his wife, whom he married in 2017.
“This is actually a decision I’d made before I took the show,” Badgley said. “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, ‘Do I wanna put myself back on a career path where I’m just always a romantic lead?’”
He continued, “It’s really important to me … Fidelity in every relationship — and especially my marriage — is important to me, and it just got to a point where I didn’t wanna do that. Then, of course, before I took the show is there a question of, ‘Do I have a career if I don’t?’ I mean, you know, think about every male lead you’ve loved. Are they kissing someone? Are they doing a lot more than that? It’s really not my desire to.”
But Badgley stuck to his morals and, despite being nervous of the repercussions, brought up his concerns with Gamble.
“It was not easy. It was easy because of Sera’s response, and I felt relieved,” he explained in an interview with GQ. “But technically speaking, if I thought I’d had the ability to set that boundary earlier, I would have. We shall see if setting that boundary, of course, has any ramifications,” he said. “Just simply, it does limit the number of projects you can be a part of.”