David Arquette and his ex-wife, Courteney Cox, met while filming the horror film Scream in 1996. The pair got married three years later and are proud parents to their 16-year-old daughter, Coco. They ended up getting divorced in 2010, but they have a healthy and positive co-parenting relationship.
They also have a fantastic professional relationship and will even costar in Scream 5, which may start filming later this year. The pair will reprise their roles as married couple Gale Weathers and Dewey Riley.
David recently opened up about their relationship and noted that he anticipates that working together will be great, especially since they still get along quite well. "Well, we co-parent. So, we're in touch quite a bit. It's great."
He added that working together is just as fun: "We always love working together. She's an incredible actress, so it'll be fun to bring these characters back to life and see where they're at."
This will be the second installment that Courteney and David have made together since they separated, and the first they've made since their divorce.
Fans of the franchise are pretty excited about getting a fifth movie, and David has echoed that feeling: "I just want them to be true to the characters, that's all that really matters to me. The filmmakers were fans of the original and it really inspired them. So, it's great to see that."
He added, "I mean, the more I've been in this business and where I'm at now, whenever you can combine something you love … there's something magical that happens. And these guys have that sort of approach to horror films. They love the original series, and I think they want to do it justice."
After meeting Courteney in 1996, David claimed that he had to "trick" her into falling in love with him.
"Was it love at first sight? For me it was, but not for her. I had to trick her. We met at a pre-party before we started filming Scream. I was being a little cocky and Courteney was like, 'Ah, I've heard of you,' and we just kept flirting for a while. She's just so gorgeous and she jokes around so much."
David proposed pretty quickly in 1998. While a lot of people didn't think the two were a logical couple, Scream director Wes Craven said it made sense to him: "It's one of those cases where opposites attract and complement each other in wonderful ways." He added that David "brought a lot of excitement and a kind of mad whimsy to her life, and she brought a rootedness and a great amount of wisdom and love into his."
Before she met David, Courteney had ended a five-and-a-half-year relationship with Michael Keaton and wasn't really looking for anything new. In 1997, she told USA Today, "Relationships are tougher than I thought, and I've got a lot of work to do on myself." However, she remained hopeful that "actors dating actors can work out. The most important thing is to be with someone who's creative and passionate about what they do."
Their Scream costars said that it was clear David and Courteney were going to begin a relationship from the beginning. Jamie Kennedy said, "From that very first day, you could tell something was going to happen with them. At the read-through he'd make a joke, and she'd just laugh and keep looking at him. She literally couldn't take her eyes off him."
However, Courteney reportedly wanted to take things slow, especially since David is younger than she is. They really got close while filming Scream 2, as David's mother was sick at the time and he had to navigate that reality while filming the movie. Wes Craven said it was obviously really challenging. "He had to do these romantic and comedic scenes at the same time he was taking these terrible phone calls [about his mother]."
When his mother died that year, Courteney stepped in and helped David work through the pain. From then on, the two were basically inseparable. Courteney spent a lot of time on the set of David's film Never Been Kissed, and his costar Drew Barrymore noticed a definite vibe between the two of them. "They're going to be good together as a married couple," she said. "He's funny, she's funny. They're just a cool couple."
Quite a few people were surprised when they announced their separation in 2010, but as the two began giving interviews, it began to make sense. David told Howard Stern that Courteney was tired of having to parent her husband and that she told him, "I don't want to be your mother anymore. She tries to take on everybody's problems. She's the mother to everyone. That's why she doesn't want to be the mother to me anymore."
Courteney also shared that the differences that initially drew them together were also what undid their marriage. "There are a lot of things that David likes to do completely the opposite things I do … I don't want to inhibit him in his life. He really is a very gregarious guy, he's very outgoing. I'm much more of an introvert."
In 2016, she expanded on this idea in an interview with Bear Grylls, noting, "[We] found ourselves living separate lives and just coexisting and being great friends, but not having the intimacy that is so important in a relationship. I think you really need to work in a relationship, and I think that we tried. We're just really different, too. I'm the polar opposite of him. And that can be great for a lot of things, but I need this kind of real, one-on-one connection."
However, they have managed to be excellent co-parents and friends. David said it's down to how you treat the other person: "We just respect each other. No matter what people go through, you still have a child together. When you love someone, you want them to be happy, even if it's not with you."
