Next month will mark the 36th anniversary of Cameron Crowe‘s directorial debut, Say Anything, which featured John Cusack and Ione Skye as a blossoming high school couple, Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court. It’s arguably one of the best ’80s movies, but the romance between Skye and Cusack was strictly on-screen, or so we thought.
Via EW, Skye’s new autobiography, Say Everything, reveals that she had a very real romantic crush on Cusack while they were filming Say Anything. In an excerpt shared from the book, Skye recalls her feelings coming up when she and Crowe argued with Cusack about whether Lloyd should tell Diane that he loved her. Cusack mentioned off the cuff that he had never been in love until recently, and that threw Skye for a loop.
“I spun out on that for a moment,” recalled Skye. “Was Johnny in love with me? As our romance had grown on camera, a real attraction had grown as well. I felt it all the time and knew he did too, but we’d just let it be on film. Did he want more? Did I? Was I in love with Johnny?’
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Skye later learned that Cusack was referring to his then girlfriend, Susannah Melvoin. But that didn’t stop some sparks from flying when she asked him to say “I love you” for her, instead of refusing to let Lloyd express the feeling.
“We had a brief, thrilling stare-off, and I thought we might kiss, but we didn’t,” noted Skye. “That would come later, years later.”
Skye doesn’t elaborate too much about her real-life romance with Cusack, and she added that it was something she felt she had to explore following her divorce from Adam Horovitz in 2000.
“I’d slept with Johnny after my divorce because I’d needed to get him out of my system and it had worked — now I knew we were meant to be in love only in the movies.”
Although Cusack and Skye’s relationship didn’t last, Say Anything is currently streaming among the best movies on Hulu, and their on-screen chemistry will live on through that film.
Watch Say Anything on Hulu.
