Steve Martin and Martin Short’s Friendship Timeline

Imagine starring in countless extremely successful creative projects of your choice, all alongside your best friend. That’s the reality for Steve Martin and Martin Short, who play neighbors who bond over their love of true crime in “Only Murders in the Building.” In real life, Martin and Short have an actual long-term friendship that stretches back decades, and their bond has been incredibly fruitful creatively, spawning comedy tours, films, and many “Saturday Night Live” appearances. They also seem to genuinely love spending time together and can often be seen goofing off at red carpet appearances and speaking lovingly about one another in interviews. In short, their relationship is friendship goals, and if anyone wants to be best friends while working on amazing creative projects together and absolutely not taking fancy public occasions seriously, I’m currently taking applications.

One of the best parts of Short and Martin’s friendship is that they genuinely seem to respect one another for who they are, regardless of talent. “Steve’s best quality is who he is as a man. He’s very moral, he’s very loyal, very, very ethical. And this is beyond all that talent. You can be working with the most talented, funniest human being in the world, but if you don’t have those other things, you don’t really want to tour with someone,” Short said in a 2019 interview with People. Martin echoed those sentiments in the same interview. “He’s kind of the perfect person. He’s smart, he’s funny. He has many friends. He’s the most popular guy at your dinner party,” he said of Short. “If he’s coming to a dinner party, it’s a better dinner party. If Marty can’t come, you cancel the party.”

Of course, in addition to being great people (at least according to each other), both are extremely talented, and their relationship has generated a variety of projects across mediums. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine a better way to spend time than making the TV show, movie, or Netflix special you want to alongside your BFF of multiple decades, which is exactly what Martin and Short have gotten to do many times over. Hollywood and fame, in particular, can famously be isolating, so finding an equal in the industry with whom you have creative and real-life chemistry seems ultra rare and valuable. (Though Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott recently did the same with “Bottoms,” so maybe they’ll be Gen Z’s Martin and Short?) Ahead, check out some of Martin and Short’s biggest friendship milestones over the years.