11 stars who adopted the adorable animals they met on set
11 stars who adopted the adorable animals they met on set
Britt HayesWed, August 26, 2026 at 11:00 PM UTC
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Glen Powell with his dog, Brisket; Sarah Jessica Parker with her cat, Lotus, on ‘And Just Like That’; Chris Evans with his dog, DodgerCredit: Glen Powell/Instagram; HBO; Chris Evans/Instagram
It’s not uncommon for stars to meet the love of their life on set. Sometimes, that love is small, furry, ridiculously adorable, and in need of a loving home.
Adopting a pet is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have, and if you’re on the fence about it, maybe one of these celebrity pet adoption stories will inspire you. Some, like Sophie Turner and the late Robert Redford, fell for their four-legged costars, while others, like Chris Evans and Glen Powell, found and adopted their furry companions during production.
Honorable mention goes to the celebs who tried — and failed — to adopt their animal screen partners, like Mark Wahlberg. The actor loved Ukai, his canine costar in 2024’s Arthur the King, so much that he “tried to bribe” the dog’s trainer. “I offered her whatever she would want,” Wahlberg told PEOPLE. “But, of course, that bond is not something that you can separate. I just fell in love with him.” Better luck next time!
Below, Entertainment Weekly spotlights the sweet stories of 11 stars who adopted their adorable pets on set. Prepare to have your hearts warmed.
01 of 11
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker with Shoe the cat (played by Lotus) on ‘And Just Like That’Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
There’s no contest: the breakout star of And Just Like That was Shoe, the cute little kitten that Carrie Bradshaw adopts in the first season of HBO’s Sex and the City sequel. Sarah Jessica Parker was so smitten with her kitten costar that she decided to adopt him in real life.
“His off-camera name is Lotus,” Parker revealed in an August 2023 Instagram post accompanied by a carousel of photos featuring her feline friend, whom she and husband Matthew Broderick adopted from the Connecticut Humane Society. “He joins Rémy and Smila who we adopted in May 2022,” she added. “If he looks familiar, that’s because he is.”
02 of 11
Sophie Turner
Sophie Turner with Lady the direwolf (played by Zunni the dog) on ‘Game of Thrones’Credit: Everett
A 2013 profile of Sophie Turner in her local newspaper, the Coventry Telegraph, revealed that the Game of Thrones actress had fallen for a costar. “In between her hectic filming schedule, Sophie likes nothing more than to relax at home with her family and pet dog Zunni, who the family adopted from the series,” the article said.
On the hit HBO series, the six Stark children — including Turner’s Sansa — discover a litter of direwolves, the sigil of their family, and adopt them. Sansa’s direwolf is named Lady, and she unfortunately dies pretty early on (another reason to hate Joffrey). But Turner wasn’t eager to part ways with Zunni, the Northern Inuit dog that played her on-screen companion. “We knew Lady died and they wanted to re-home her,” Turner told the CoventryTelegraph. “My mum persuaded them to let us adopt her.”
03 of 11
Robert Redford
Robert Redford riding a horse during the filming of ‘The Electric Horseman’ in 1979Credit: Anwar Hussein/Getty
Robert Redford was famously rather fond of horses. The late actor not only starred in multiple movies featuring horses, but he also housed several on his Horse Whisper Ranch in Utah, which took its name from the 1998 western drama The Horse Whisperer, in which Redford played the titular role of a renowned equine expert.
Redford first rode horseback on screen in the 1969 classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 10 years later, the actor starred in Sydney Pollack’s The Electric Horseman, in which he performed all his own horse-riding stunts and developed a bond with his equine costar, Rising Star. After production wrapped, according to The Sacramento Bee, Redford bought the horse and cared for him until he died 18 years later.
04 of 11
Tiffany Haddish
Tiffany Haddish at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Moana’ at the Hollywood Bowl on July 7, 2026; Haddish’s cat, CatatonicCredit: Frazer Harrison/WireImage; Tiffany Haddish/Instagram
Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key’s 2016 action comedy Keanu centers on the duo trying to save the eponymous kitten, played by seven identical rescue cats. “All of the kittens were rescued from shelters, so they truly went from rags to riches,” trainer April Mackin told NOLA.com. “It was awesome that we not only found kittens that were perfect, but we were also saving lives.”
At the end of production, all seven of the kittens were adopted out, including one that went home with costar Tiffany Haddish. “Every time I would hold her in a scene, she would like fall asleep or curl up with me,” Haddish told Complex. “The set decorator was like, ‘That’s your cat, you got to take her home. That’s your spirit animal. She’s your creature.’”
Haddish already had two dogs at home and wasn’t sure she could handle a third pet. “[But] every time the trainer would take her away from me, she would cry and like claw at the trainer because she wanted to be with me,” she continued. “[Finally], I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll take her.’”
05 of 11
Glen Powell
Glen Powell with his dog, BrisketCredit: Glen Powell/Instagram
While filming Twisters, the 2024 sequel to the 1996 classic Twister, Glen Powell was feeling a little lonely. “I was going through a breakup at the time and was in the middle of Enid, Oklahoma, and I had always wanted a dog,” the actor told EW. “It was something I thought about a lot, but it was somewhere in this coffee shop in Enid.... I don’t even know how to describe it, I just had the desire to be a father.”
Powell had been following dog adoption and rescue accounts on social media and came across a cute pup at the Labelle Foundation in Los Angeles. He immediately asked friends who followed the rescue if they could give him a recommendation to help the adoption process along. “I literally messaged saying, ‘Please put in a good word for me,’” Powell said. “I sent them a heartbreakingly depressing video of me [explaining] why I needed this dog.”
Powell’s adoption application was approved, and he flew to Los Angeles to pick up his new pup, giving him the name Brisket. “Brisket would just kick it with every department head, and he would sit in my chair and just sleep. I had the most adorable picture of Brisket in my Twisters chair at the rodeo,” the actor said. “But he really became sort of a set mascot on that movie. It’s just adorable.”
06 of 11
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn with Pippin the fawn from the film ‘Green Mansions’Credit: MGM/Getty
It’s one of the most iconic images of Audrey Hepburn: the actress crouched in the aisle of a supermarket, looking at a box of graham crackers, with a little fawn cozied up at her side. The late star met her deer companion in 1958, while filming Green Mansions, in which she played an enigmatic woman who is followed around by a fawn in the Venezuelan jungle.
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According to The Guardian, Hepburn took the fawn, whose name was Pippin, home so that she could bond with her. The actress fed Pippin, whom she called “Ip,” from a bottle, took her to parties, and even slept with her. “I don’t have any children of my own,” Hepburn reportedly said. “but I’m learning a lot from Ip.”
The person who took the photo was Bob Willoughby, a photographer and friend of Hepburn’s. “Beverly Hills habitués are fairly blasé about what they see,” he wrote in his book, Remembering Audrey, “but Audrey being followed around town by this lovely creature stopped everyone in their tracks.”
07 of 11
Chris Evans
Chris Evans with his dog, DodgerCredit: Chris Evans/Instagram
While filming the 2017 drama Gifted, Chris Evans had an unexpected meet-cute on set. “One of the last scenes we were filming was in a pound, a kennel,” the Avengers star told PEOPLE. “I foolishly walked in and I thought, ‘Are these actor dogs or are these real up for adoption dogs?’ And sure enough they were, so I was walking up and down the aisles and saw this one dude and he didn’t belong there. I snagged him and he’s such a good dog.”
Evans, a self-described “dog lunatic,” named his new pal Dodger. “They aged him at about one, he acts like a puppy, he’s got the energy of a puppy, he’s just such a sweetheart, he’s such a good boy,” he said. “He loves dogs, he loves kids, he’s full of love.”
08 of 11
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen riding his horse, Hidalgo, at the premiere of ‘Hidalgo’ at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood on March 1, 2004Credit: Albert L. Ortega/WireImage
Like Robert Redford, Viggo Mortensen is a real Horse Guy. The Lord of the Rings star has a habit of buying equine costars from his film sets, including three horses from Peter Jackson’s epic fantasy trilogy. “They were up for sale once the movies were done,” he told NME. “There were the two I’d ridden — a chestnut and then the big bay that Aragorn rides — but I also bought the white horse that Arwen rides in The Fellowship of the Ring when she’s being chased through the forest by the Black Riders.”
In 2004, Mortensen told EW that he’d bought another hooved costar, this time from the Western adventure Hidalgo. “I thought about buying him all during the shoot,” the actor recalled. “I asked Rex Peterson, who owned him and who had found him, and he said, ‘You can have first dibs on him,’ and I know he was happy for me to have him.”
“It wasn’t a question of possessing the horse, I just wanted to keep up the relationship with him,” Mortensen explained. “He’s unusually intelligent, self-possessed, and calm for a stallion. He’d never been on a movie set, and for him to perform all those tricks and fall down and then stay down while there’s camera crew around was incredible.”
09 of 11
David Dastmalchian
David Dastmalchian with his cat, BubblegumCredit: David Dastmalcian/Instagram
Cat owners are very familiar with the Cat Distribution System, the mysterious and serendipitous method by which a stray cat shows up in your life, effectively choosing you. Such was the case for David Dastmalchian, who was filming 2021’s The Suicide Squad in Panama when the CDS assigned him a new feline companion.
“She’s such a special cat,” the character actor told Vulture. “I was in Panama and this incredible, beautiful cat kept coming up to the set, wanting to be petted and scratched. She was really hungry and really beat up. And I fell in love and now she’s mine. Well, she’s not mine, I’m hers.”
“Her full name is Abner Bubblegum Polka-Dot Cat, but we just call her Bubblegum,” Dastmalchian explained. As for her adorable outfit, the actor said that The Suicide Squad costume department made a miniature version of the suit worn by his character, Polka-Dot Man, and gave it to him after learning he had adopted Bubblegum.
10 of 11
Yvette Nicole Brown
Yvette Nicole Brown with her dog, HarleyCredit: Yvette Nicole Brown/Instagram
In Disney’s 2019 remake of Lady and the Tramp, Yvette Nicole Brown plays Aunt Sarah, a woman who really hates dogs. “Sarah don’t like dogs. Yvette does,” the Community star told PEOPLE. “Every day on set, I had to yell at beautiful, innocent puppies, which was horrible for me as a person but I think it was hilarious.”
Many of the dogs featured in Lady and the Tramp were rescues, and at the end of filming, Brown adopted one herself: Mister Harley Brown, one of the doubles for Lady. “[The trainer] didn’t just let people grab a dog,” she explained. “She watched you the entire run of the show and at the end she goes, ‘I think I have your dog.’ I said ‘Oh! Who is it?’ and she says, “Harley is your dog.’”
“She was 100% right,” Brown continued. “Harley is my dog. I love him. He’s a maniac, but I love him.”
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11 of 11
Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser attends the ‘Pressure’ premiere at AMC Lincoln Square 13 on May 26, 2026 in New YorkCredit: Kristina Bumphrey/Getty
Brendan Fraser joined the Horse Guy club on the set of Texas Rising, the 2015 History miniseries about the Texas Revolution and the rise of the Texas Rangers. “I got this horse because it’s a big horse,” Fraser told GQ, revealing that the horse’s name is Pecas, the Spanish word for “freckles.”
Fraser said that he connected with Pecas while filming the series in Mexico. “Without doing too much — what’s the word? Anthropomorphic… anthropomorphizing… Without pretending that the animal is a human, he looked like he needed help,” the actor explained. “Like: Get me out of here, man.” Fraser said that the other horses on set bullied Pecas. “And they beat up on this horse. I mean, I swear, I saw him get kicked so many times, bit, by other horses all the time,” he said, adding, “And I never saw him fight back.”
The Mummy star brought Pecas to a farm near his home in Bedford, N.Y., where the horse spends time with Fraser and his family, particularly his son Griffin, who is on the autism spectrum. “There’s something good that happens between the two of them,” Fraser explained. “And even if he doesn’t ride him, just give him a brush. The horse loves it, the repetitive motion that kids on the spectrum have that they love. And it just works… You know, you have to find those tools, strategies. If I ride, too, I just feel better. I just feel better.”
on Entertainment Weekly
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