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Levi Ackerman and Erwin Smith - What is the Relationship Between These Two Smokin’ Hot Actors?
Erwin Smith - starred in The Rose (2010); Hellfire (2011); Dirt in The Vein (2013) ; Black Tide (2014); Where We Go To Die (2021); People I’ve Buried (2024)
Levi Ackerman - starred in Black Tide (2014); Cliff at The End of The World (2017); Where We Go To Die (2021); People I’ve Buried (2024)
Their first appearance side by side on our screens in Black Tide (2014) had us all enraptured. It was Levi’s first starring role, a huge step up from his previous jobs as minor characters, often in movies starring Erwin Smith, and he did not disappoint. His role as Manny Lou was as beautiful as it was heartbreaking, and I know I wasn’t the only one leaving the cinema with teary eyes. And beside co-star Erwin - ! What a fabulous match they made, and still do.
It’s no wonder they’ve starred in so many films together since this debut, thriving in roles as troubled friends with conflicting relationships and often featuring problematic or flat out illegal backstories. Levi must have murdered over one hundred people by now (as his characters, of course. He’s not a criminal!)
Much of what brings them together in starring roles is their onscreen chemistry. We’ve watched them cry together, hug like brothers, and exchange soft words often akin to those of lovers.
But, how does their relationship function off screen? This is what we all want to know (and you’re lying if you say you don’t). If you’ve kept up with all their publicity appearances, you’ve seen them posing together at events, sharing glasses of champagne, linking arms, and even kissing one another’s cheeks. And let us not forget about the evening of the premier of People I’ve Buried (2024), when Levi was seen leaving the venue wearing a suit jacket much too big to be his own, followed by Erwin wearing no jacket at all.
Is this all for publicity? It’s not unheard of for actors to flaunt fabricated relationships with their co-stars to advertise a new project, but if that was so, why are so many of their gestures spotted away from major events and screenings? In 2014 we saw Levi leaving a hotel Erwin was confirmed to be staying in during the shooting for a film Levi was not acting in. Coincidence? Yes, perhaps, but there have been an awful lot of those, especially recently.
I’m going to spare you the list of everything they’ve been seen doing together, because truly I’m not sure the list would ever have an end; we seem to be getting new candid content of them daily lately.
Leave a comment below sharing your thoughts on our two favourite co-stars, and subscribe to our email notifications to be kept in the loop.
[Written by Eren Jaeger, 2025, for The Filmstar Fanatic]
It was pointless to read the articles and had been for a few years now, ever since that 2014 hotel sighting which started all of this shit, but Levi read them. Well, the most popular ones, anyway. The ones that were posted all over social media and shared so many times it was difficult to avoid clicking the link, which is exactly what he did one Sunday night, sitting in his caravan on the set of a film which was to begin shooting in the morning.
The problem was, Eren Jaeger had found his success writing about him and Erwin, and why the hell would he quit it now that his article views were in the millions? Levi didn’t blame him, but that didn’t mean he hated him any less. If he was in a room with that bastard, Eren better have a fucking bodyguard.
It was a pain. All of this was a pain. He’d wanted to make a living as an actor, and now he was being analysed in magazines based on where he was and who he was or wasn’t with at any random moment. Seriously, what the fuck happened to personal privacy? He could barely shit in peace nowadays.
What the fuck did ‘we seem to be getting new candid content of them daily lately’ mean? Of course there was a surplus of new content - they were on a fucking film set together preparing to shoot the fucking film! Have these people not heard of communicating with co-workers before or what?
Levi was sipping tea furiously with the article open on his laptop when the door to his caravan opened, and there was only one person who did that without knocking first. He didn’t even know how they got to this point of inviting themselves into one another’s spaces, but - well, there they were, and it wasn’t worth the time it took to think about.
His black suit shirt was unbuttoned; he thought about doing it up, but it didn’t seem important.
“You’ve seen it,” was the first thing Erwin said, closing the door behind himself and sitting beside Levi on the bench. He was wearing a similar outfit to Levi, an all black suit. “That Jaeger kid is getting on my nerves, I tell you.”
“I have plans to hurt him,” Levi replied, and as usual, Erwin wasn’t quite sure if he was joking or not. “He’s, what, nineteen? What fuckin’ nineteen year old has the audacity to make a living off this shit? Bastard. Fuckin’ entitled, nosey bastard. Tch.”
“He can’t be nineteen, that’s not right. He’s got to be at least twenty-one. They don’t let people under twenty-one publish in that magazine. How do you not know that?” Erwin leaned over for the recently boiled kettle to make himself a mug of tea, standing again to look for milk in the small fridge.
“There’s no milk,” Levi muttered, still focused on the article. “And he’s not twenty-one, you cunt. He’s nineteen. Do you not remember when the magazine changed their policy just to publish him because he was gaining so much traction elsewhere? They trademarked his name so he can’t publish anywhere else. How do you not know that?”
Sitting back, Erwin sipped his black tea, grimaced, and said, “I don’t know how you can drink this stuff without milk.” He took another sip anyway. “I thought that was the other magazine, you know, the one that had a lawsuit filed against it for apparently posting explicit photos of Hange Zoe without permission. Jaeger used to write for them until they were shut down, and now he writes for Filmstar Fanatic and he’s twenty-one. He’s definitely twenty-one. I’m sure of it.”
“Did you come in here just to mansplain?”
“How is that mansplaining?”
“You’re a man. You’re explaining shit. So. Mansplain.”
Erwin laughed. “You’re a man too -”
“For fuck’s sake, Smith, will you give it up and just focus? We need to do something about this. I know you always say, Oh, Levi, don’t worry, it’s not that bad. But it is that bad. This fuckin’ magazine is making millions off us and we haven’t once given them the permission to say any of this.” He spoke with harshness, his words sharp and irritated as they often got when he came across one of these articles. It wasn’t new, and Erwin wasn’t fazed.
Placing his cup down, Erwin leaned his elbows on the table, annoyingly calm, and said, “No one gives magazines permission. If they did, the magazines wouldn’t have anything to publish. It’s just how it is. They’ve been writing about me for my entire adult life, there comes a point when you have to accept that it’s not going to magically stop just because you find it annoying.”
“Don’t start this shit with me.”
“What?”
Levi sighed, exasperated, circling the rim of his teacup with his fingers. “You know what. Preaching about how it’s been this way for your whole adult life as if you’re fuckin’ ninety and you’re the wisest fuckin’ person here. They’ve been writing about me for my whole adult life, too, and just because you accepted it doesn’t mean I have to. Fuckin’ cunt.”
“All I’m saying -”
“Yeah, well, say it somewhere else.”
Seeing he wasn’t going to get anywhere, Erwin gave up on his point and leaned back, trying and failing to mask a small laugh.
With a glare sideways at him, Levi spat, “ What?”
Erwin shrugged.
“What’s funny, bastard? Don’t fuckin’ sit there snickering at me, it’s rude.”
“Oh, excuse me, what are you? Mr politeness? Pot calling the kettle black.”
Levi folded his arms, scowling down at his tea. “Why’d you come here? Your caravan not good enough for you? Felt like pissin’ me off for absolutely no reason?”
“There’s no moody man in my caravan.”
“Not since you left, no.”
Erwin huffed a laugh. “That’s not what I mean.”
“I’m not moody. Moody is what teenagers are. I’m pissed off. Know the difference.” He finished the rest of his tea with a dramatic gulp, the cup making a loud sound when he put it back down. “You can show yourself out if you only came here to annoy me.”
“I would never.” Erwin lay his hand over his heart in feigned distraught that Levi was assuming such a thing of him, kicking his shoes off as a gesture to show he wanted to stay, that he didn’t care if Levi was going to be biting all evening. “I saw the article and wanted to make sure you were fine. Is that a sin?”
Levi huffed. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be fine? It’s a fuckin’ article by a nineteen year old lowlife with no friends and a huge, disgusting ego. He doesn’t have fuckin’ shit on me, Erwin, don’t be ridiculous. Tch. Cunt.”
“Will you calm down? I haven’t done anything to earn the use of that word.”
Levi didn’t want to calm down, and what right did Erwin have talking to him like that? If Erwin didn’t want to sit there and listen to him, he could leave. It wasn’t like Levi was forcing him to stay, far from it. “Why are you so unbothered by this?”
“I’m not unbothered. You think I like having things said about me every day? Of course I don’t. But there isn’t anything we can do, realistically. What do you propose we do?”
There wasn’t anything Levi could reply to that, because for all his bitching, he knew Erwin was right. Damn him.
He shrugged and said nothing, but his face was hard, his mouth downturned.
Erwin hummed, a thoughtful sound, and for a few moments they sat side by side, wordless. Until Erwin lifted his hand, took Levi’s collar between his thumb and fingers, acting to straighten it despite it already being immaculate. Levi let him. It wasn’t like Erwin never touched him like that, anyway. They’d acted together enough to have shared plenty of physical contact. This wasn’t new.
Next, a light brush of fingers across the neck, a flickering of eyes refusing to meet for more than a second at a time, a quietness only interrupted by breaths and the ruffling of fabric.
Each action was small enough by itself to mean nothing, to be no different than how they acted on screen, but it was difficult to overlook when they took place in tandem, when there was a rhythm to it, an unspoken agreement of what was going to take place next despite them never having spoken about it before.
Otherwise, Levi would have protested when Erwin’s hand strayed beneath his already unbuttoned shirt, palm on warm skin. But he didn’t. He leaned into it as he sometimes found himself leaning into Erwin’s voice and reciprocating scripted hugs in a way he didn’t with other actors.
Then Levi’s shirt was off, and he was trapped between the seat of the bench and Erwin, looking up at his co-star’s face with wide eyes. Erwin gazed back at him, seeming like he was going to talk for a moment, but no words left his mouth.
The weight of Erwin’s body on Levi’s was comforting in a horrible way, soothing even as he considered how wrong this all was, how stupid they were being. He tipped his head back and let Erwin stroke his chest and his throat, swallowed when his nipple was tweaked, swallowed again.
“Erwin,” Levi murmured, and his voice sounded like it wasn’t his, like it belonged to someone softer and sweeter.
Still with his eyes fixed on Levi’s, the older murmured in response, “Levi.” His hand was gripping his waist. “I’ve been thinking about that scene we’re going to shoot.”
“Me too.”
“We’re not supposed to rehearse it.”
Levi blinked, swallowed, shook his head. “No.”
“Do you…think we should?”
Again, he blinked. His body was hot where Erwin touched him. “Do you?”
“I think - ” Erwin’s gaze dropped to Levi’s mouth “ - it’ll be fine either way.”
“Yes.”
“But, it would do us no harm, surely.” This was him finding an excuse; Levi wasn’t stupid. He could figure that out. This was Erwin telling Levi he wanted to kiss him, and he was waiting for permission. Ever the gentleman. Fingers circled Levi’s waist, not daring to go any further down.
“No,” mumbled Levi. His chest felt light and like it was being crushed all at once. “No. It wouldn’t.” He raised his hand to Erwin's back, a light touch that became heavier quickly as Erwin’s mouth met his. Levi expected him to kiss as politely as he spoke, but he was wrong. Erwin kissed firm and unapologetic, just how Levi spoke. There was no hesitation, but Levi supposed Erwin never hesitated with anything.
After a couple of seconds, they broke apart, sharing a stare of mutual surprise - what the hell were they doing? - before they were kissing again, Levi’s hand sliding up into Erwin’s hair, holding his head close.
He thought about pulling away and asking what the hell they were doing, but Erwin’s mouth was distracting and he kept forgetting what he wanted to say. Kept forgetting that this was his co-star and there were rumours they were dating, and the last thing they should have been doing was making out in a caravan on the set of their next film.
Besides, they were going to kiss on set anyway. It wasn’t like this was never going to happen. It was only a kiss.
The next time they broke apart, Levi was sure he was going to say something about it being a mistake, a lapse in judgement, and that Erwin would agree and quickly leave, but all he found himself saying when faced with those dreamy eyes and that gorgeous face up close was, “Don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about.”
Make it about the film, about the scene they were going to shoot, about anything other than the fact that had just happened. Make it seem like work.
If it was purely work, why was Erwin looking at him like that, and why did Levi like it?
“Definitely not,” mumbled Erwin, still with that little smirk. He swiped his thumb over Levi’s bottom lip and Levi was too caught up in his gaze to push his hand away.
They were both waiting, now, for the other to make the next move. To know whether this was going to continue or stop, to understand without asking what the other wanted.
Levi swallowed and cleared his throat.
It was sickly, this loveliness Erwin showed him, like Levi wasn’t a bitter man who spoke badly of everyone, including Erwin. In an interview just last week he had said, ‘The only thing that man is capable of is looking nice in a suit,’ and Levi didn’t understand why, but that was taken as a nice thing for him to say to Erwin.
Erwin himself had been interviewed by the same person the following day and responded, ‘ No one flatters me like Levi does.’
He knew Erwin’s comment was intended as a joke, something the two of them did often - referencing what they had said in other interviews. But everyone else took it as cute, as more ‘evidence’ that they were involved, that there was something going on between them. Even those who spent their time insisting Levi was a foul, disrespectful man couldn’t resist engaging in this; they were all so superficial.
Levi wanted to tell everyone to fucking take things at face-value, that his insults towards Erwin were just insults. But - well, that would no doubt be twisted, too, and he couldn’t be bothered with the hassle.
“It’s late,” Levi managed. It wasn’t that late, but he didn’t know what else to do or say and lying there beneath Erwin like that was threatening to give him a very physical reaction. That couldn’t happen; Erwin couldn’t know how turned on he was, how often his thoughts slipped onto him in a dark room when he was alone.
The mood shifted then, the strange romance of it all dissipating back into their usual, casual atmosphere. Like nothing had happened.
Erwin got up off him and put his shoes back on. “See you tomorrow,” he said easily, no trace of awkwardness. “Sleep well.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Once he was gone, Levi made himself more tea, intending on calming himself with it, but soon abandoned it to shove his hand into his pants and finish what Erwin had started.
He wasn’t fully hard, but he wasn’t soft, either, and there was little chance of him being able to get adequate sleep like this, if he was even going to sleep at all.
He came into his fist with a stifled moan, riding forwards on the bench, wondering if Erwin was doing the same, unsure whether he wanted him to or not. Which was ridiculous because Levi’s main source of erotica the past few years were the images he created of Erwin in his head, the sweat of pleasure, the groans and growls Levi was sure he must make.
In the tiny shower, Levi cursed himself, then Erwin. They shouldn’t have done that. It didn’t take a genius to know that. They should have listened to their fucking director and not rehearsed the scene. Levi should have told Erwin to go back to his own caravan, and Erwin should have been horrified when Levi didn’t push him away, when he reciprocated so readily.
They were both to blame equally. That was the worst part.