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How Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus almost missed each other on the set of The Last Song.

 

10 years ago, 19-year-old Liam Hemsworth and 16-year-old Miley Cyrus met and fell in love on the set of The Last Song.

Today, they’re married.

However, their chance meeting very nearly didn’t happen.

Before The Last Song, Hemsworth was a relatively unknown actor. His acting resume included small parts in Australian TV shows like Neighbours, McLeod’s Daughters and Home and Away. He had traveled to LA to try to break into the industry.

As his three month visa was coming to an end, the now 29-year-old received a game-changing phone call.

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Speaking to entertainment reporter, Willie Geist, on TODAY, the youngest Hemsworth brother shared the story of how he ended up with the role of Will Blakelee.

“[The Last Song] was the first job I got and it was literally right at the end of my three month visa,” he said.

“Originally, they cast another kid and it didn’t work out with him.

“My agent calls me, whispering, he’s like, ‘Alright you’ve got to go to Disney right now. It’s not working out with the other guy. You’ve got to go in and read with Miley again’.”

He got the part.

“I come in and everyone starts clapping,” he recalled.

“They’re like, ‘We should’ve gone with you first!'”

 

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10 year challenge

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Eventually his status in Hollywood earned him the role of Gale Hawthorne in the very lucrative The Hunger Games series.

But had it not been for The Last Song, there’s also every chance he and Cyrus would never have met.

The couple didn’t exactly get off on the right foot. Speaking to Seventeen Magazine in 2009, Cyrus said she initially, albeit wrongfully, thought Hemsworth didn’t want the role.

“I heard a rumour that he didn’t really want the role, and so when he came in to audition for the role, I’m thinking, ‘Here’s this guy, he’s amazingly good-looking, super-confident, and he doesn’t realise how blessed he is to be in this room, because I know how blessed I am,” she said.

“This is such a big opportunity for both of us.’ And I was thinking, ‘Ugh, gross,’ you know? Then I started talking with him, and he was just the most genuinely precious, sweet person.”

Of course, their relationship hasn’t been without its challenges. The young couple broke off their first engagement in 2013, before reuniting three years later.

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Sharing her insight behind the split to radio personality Howard Stern in 2016, Cyrus said this period allowed them both “to grow up”.

“I had to. I don’t like when relationships are two halves trying to make a whole,’ she said.

“You get time to be yourself. You get time to grow up. I think if you’re growing up attached to another person, you never really get solid as your own being.”

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Hemsworth reiterated her sentiment in an interview with GQ Australia.

“Of course it was hard, man. But at the time we were going in different directions and it’s just what needed to happen,” he said.

“We were both super young and it was a good decision at the time – we both needed that.”

 

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Reflecting on their decade-long relationship on TODAY, even Hemsworth admitted the circumstances leading up to their initial meeting in 2009 was serendipitous.

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“It’s sort of weird how it all kind of comes together and 10 years later I’m here, married,” he said.

“I feel really happy and really fortunate to be with such a great person.”

It’s almost as if it was meant to be.

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