What Was Sue & Axl Heck's Off-Screen Relationship Really Like?

From 2009 to 2018, Eden Sher and Charlie McDermott captured the hearts of Middle America as the onscreen brother-and-sister duo Sue and Axl Heck in "The Middle." The pair portrayed opposites on screen: Sher as the endlessly optimistic go-getter Sue Heck and McDermott as the lazy, self-centered jock Axl Heck. While the siblings butted heads and bickered frequently, they also demonstrated loyalty and love, always having each other's backs and showing up for one another. Whether it was Axl protecting Sue from bad boyfriends or the pair bonding in college, their relationship was both a source of comedy and heart in "The Middle."

Perhaps what made their relationship on the show stand out so much was that their chemistry felt convincing. They came across almost like real-life siblings, with an underlying tenderness and good-naturedness that lent their sweet and teasing moments a sense of warmth. It makes you wonder what their real-life relationship was like. Over the years, we've heard stories of friendships among teen actors, like Tyler Posey and Dylan O'Brien, that went on to last years after "Teen Wolf." However, there have also been stories like those involving Christy Carlson Romano and Shia LaBeouf, where, as Romano revealed, the relationship was mostly good acting throughout their time on "Even Stevens," and wasn't really there offscreen.

It turns out, though, that Sher and McDermott's relationship was the real deal. Over the years, the pair have proved their bond goes beyond "The Middle" with small glimpses into their sweet offscreen relationship.

From the early years of filming "The Middle," Eden Sher and Charlie McDermott shared a special bond. In a 2013 interview with TV Gal, Sher stated that she and McDermott were good buds offscreen. The outlet noted that the pair had a funny dynamic on X (then-Twitter) and questioned how their banter began. Sher responded, "I'm best friends with Charlie in real life. We just rag on each other. We just make fun of each other a lot. Most of the time, we're just having these exchanges two feet away from each other."

Just like real-life siblings, the pair liked to tease and nag each other. In the interview, Sher revealed they were still both denying that they were the biggest cellphone users on set. She explained, "We like to make fun of each other for always being on our cell phones. He'll call me 'Cell Phone Sally' but he, in fact, is 'Cell Phone Sal.' He's the major culprit on set for always being on his phone."

As the years went on, it seems their friendship remained strong. In 2018, "The Middle" was winding down, and Sher gave a "goodbye" interview with Paste Magazine. Echoing her 2013 sentiments, she reiterated that McDermott was her best friend and that her favorite scene on the show was one they shared. She stated, "My favorite thing to film ever was in Season Five ["War of the Hecks"], the first speech I gave to Charlie McDermott, who plays Axl, [and] who is one of my best friends in real life."

If you've ever wondered what it's like to spend the majority of your time filming a TV show with your best friend for nine years, Eden Sher and Charlie McDermott suggest filming "The Middle" was a bit like summer camp. From the beginning, the two teenagers found themselves thrust together for an extended period, paving the way for shared experiences and bonding. Of course, over nine seasons of filming, they grew very close, making their job feel less like work and more like fun.

Sher told Fest Mag, "We didn't know each other before 'The Middle', and then we met while working, and you know the term fast friends? When you work with someone, it's like summer camp a little bit. But then when you do it for nine years, you get the closeness of summer camp, but they're just your friends and that's what it is."

McDermott added that, as the two cast members closest in age, it made sense that they became best buds during their filming experience. And based on their awkward first meeting, the summer camp analogy may be more accurate than you think. According to McDermott, he was in his underwear in his dressing room when he met Sher, who was "getting yelled at." McDermott jokingly called the situation "perfect for bonding."

Given their close friendship and time spent together for nine years, you may have wondered if Eden Sher and Charlie McDermott ever dated. When discussing her friendship with McDermott with TV Gal, the interviewer asked Sher to clarify if she and her co-star were dating. Sher responded, "No, absolutely not." However, she did play a role in McDermott's love life, revealing that she helped him meet an old girlfriend.

She said, "I set him [McDermott] up with one of my best friends. He was dating her for a very long time. I'm dating someone else. We all get along like family." As Sher clarified, she and McDermott never had a romantic relationship, but she knew him well enough to set him up with someone in her social circle. They both went on to date and marry different people, with Sher tying the knot with husband Nick Cron-Devico in a socially distanced backyard wedding in 2020 and McDermott marrying Sara Rejaie in 2017.

Charlie McDermott displayed the most big brother-coded behavior on "The Middle" by repeatedly trying to make Eden Sher break character and laugh during filming. Trying to make you laugh during serious moments is both the funniest and most frustrating thing an older sibling can do, and it seems McDermott was quite good at it. Sher told MyTakeonTV, "Charlie just cracks me up sometimes [said with a bit of sarcasm]. That sounds a little bit like I was joking, but in all seriousness, he does [laughs].  ... When it's my coverage, and no one else is on camera but me, and he's just like, standing behind the camera, making really hilarious faces at me, as Axel."

McDermott confirmed that it's his "goal in every scene" to get Sher to break character. Even without her co-star making faces at her behind the camera, Sher had a hard enough time trying to hold a straight face while filming "The Middle." As an actor in a sitcom with hilarious characters, it wasn't always an easy task to hold in the laughter. She explained that her other co-star, Brock Ciarlelli, also had a knack for making her break character.

According to her, one of her biggest outbursts of laughter came during a scene in which Ciarlelli, as "The Middle" character Brad, came to her door and greeted her with "Hola." Although her character, Sue, was supposed to act concerned, Sher admitted, "I just hysterically broke out in laughter."

In 2015, Eden Sher provided insight into her friendship with Charlie McDermott. Although they are best friends, they also have that bickering dynamic typical of a brother and sister. Sher proved that by sharing a screenshot on Instagram of one of their text conversations. In the caption, she wrote, "Charlie McDermott: PART TIME DUNCE AND FULL TIME BUFFOON."

The screenshot showed Sher texting McDermott about ordering food. In the previous message, he had replied, "Coolio Julio" to something Sher sent. He kept referring to Sher as "Julio" when she asked about food, responding, "Yes I do Julio." Sher admonished him for not using her real name, writing, "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU ITS EDEN." McDermott feigned ignorance, responding, "What's Eden."

Giving up, Sher wrote, "You're exhausting," to which McDermott cheekily, wrongfully corrected, "*Your." While Sher and McDermott aren't their "The Middle" characters, McDermott was certainly channeling Axl with those tongue-in-cheek, smart-alecky text messages. The pair sounded just like real-life siblings as they bickered and exhausted each other over text.

In a 2017 interview with MyTakeonTV, Eden Sher described Charlie McDermott as the brother she never had. The statement is a little humorous, considering she actually does have two real-life brothers, Cosmo and Ben Sher. In fact, her real-life family birth order is the same as Sue Heck's in "The Middle": she's the middle child with an older and a younger brother.

In her interview with MyTakeonTV, Sher clarified that she does love her real-life brothers, but perhaps just wishes they'd be a little more like McDermott. She stated, "I sometimes think ... I have two brothers in real life, and I love them so dearly, I really do, I love them, but I sometimes think of Charlie as the brother I never had."

Sher's "The Middle" co-star, Patricia Heaton, who plays her on-screen mother, added, "The brother you always wanted as opposed to the brothers that you got." Their brother-sister bond may have been helped by the fact that McDermott is no stranger to younger sisters. Also, much like his onscreen character, McDermott is the oldest of three children and has two younger sisters, Erin and Grace.

In "The Middle" Season 7, Episode 9, "The Convention," Axl (Charlie McDermott) and Sue (Eden Sher) find themselves unwilling dormmates in college. Initially, it's a poor arrangement, leading to the pair getting on each other's nerves and interrupting each other's daily routine. Eventually, though, they find they mesh well, with Axl's popularity leading to Sue getting a taste of social life she's not quite ready for. In real life, their living arrangements weren't so dramatic, but they were equally heartwarming.

In the 2017 interview with MyTakeonTV, Sher and McDermott reiterated their close friendship, revealing that they were next-door neighbors while filming "The Middle." Sher stated, "Charlie and I are very close friends; everyone's friends, but we lived next door to each other." McDermott clarified that they "shared a wall" in their living situation, and Sher added that she would often "pop over" to hang out with him.

McDermott brought up the pair's shared wall in another interview with MediaMikes, where he explained, "Eden is actually my neighbor as we live in the same apartment complex. We share a wall." Even without the proximity, the cast of "The Middle" had quite the opportunity to bond, as McDermott revealed they spent "seven months out of the year" and "twelve hours a day" filming together, making them all very close.

While Eden Sher and Charlie McDermott are most well-known for their roles on "The Middle," the pair have collaborated on a few projects outside the sitcom. The first time they worked together outside of "The Middle" was in 2015, when McDermott asked Sher to appear in his directorial feature film debut, "ImagiGARY." Sher told Fest Mag, " ... I guess the first time we worked together outside of 'The Middle' was in a directing capacity. You had written this movie, and you were like, 'We're going to shoot it, do you want to be in it?' I knew you could write, but I realized then that you were actually a very good director."

"ImagiGARY" is an independent film by McDermott that follows Henry (McDermott), a college freshman who unwittingly resurrects his imaginary best friend, Gary (Nate Harley), to cope with the stress of college life. Sher appears in the film as a cameo, credited as "Drunk Girl" on IMDb. McDermott's other "The Middle" co-star, Neil Flynn, also makes an appearance in "ImagiGARY" as Officer Kegan. Unfortunately, McDermott never found a distributor for his film.

Still, Sher says it made her aware of McDermott's talents behind the camera, stating, " ... I think it's honestly a testament to your directing abilities that I felt that I was in such good hands. We'd develop the character together, and it was so collaborative. So whatever the material was, the fact that you did such a good job was very impressive." In an interview with Travel.Food.Film, McDermott revealed that Sher "bailed" him and his crew out when they ran out of money during their final week of filming.

If you've ever wondered whatever happened to Sue from "The Middle," one of Eden Sher's biggest career moves after the sitcom's end was launching her one-woman comedy show, "I Was On A Sitcom." She has been touring the show since 2023 and received rave reviews from critics. In "I Was On A Sitcom," Sher shares the "dark, vulnerable, and disarmingly casual" (via EdenSherLive) story of her life and what it meant to find herself after nine years on a sitcom, becoming nearly synonymous with her character. Meanwhile, she didn't have to go into this career shift alone. She had someone who perfectly understood what it was like to grow up on a TV show: Charlie McDermott.

McDermott and "The Middle" castmate's real-life partner, Sara Rejaie, directed "I Was On A Sitcom." While speaking to Fest Mag, Sher explained that the pair became involved in the project shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic, which McDermott and Rejaie spent in the UK. Upon returning to Los Angeles, they began reconnecting with Sher, who was in the middle of writing "I Was On A Sitcom."

She explained to the outlet, "I was thick into the writing process, and I knew it needed a director, but I didn't know who to ask because it felt like a favor, and also, I thought no one would be available. It needed to be someone very specific, and I was a little nervous to ask you [McDermott] because it was a huge favor. But there's literally no person in the entire world who would have a better understanding of the material and be able to execute it."

Charlie McDermott and Sara Rejaie did a bit more than just direct Eden Sher's one-woman show, "I Was On A Sitcom." Sher explained to Fest Mag that she really wanted to find a director who would do more than just direct what she had written. She wanted concrete direction on where the script should go and loved that McDermott and Rejaie gave her "assignments and homework" for her script.

McDermott gave Sher credit for much of "I Was On A Sitcom," assuring her that they started with a good "chunk" of work that came directly from her. He stated, "There was something very real and visceral about that main section." However, Sher insisted that McDermott and Rejaie gave her script the finishing touches, a task that she doesn't believe anyone else could have done. She explained, "I have such a hard time separating writer and performing, so to split myself in three and add director, I just couldn't. But you guys took on the phrase kill your darlings and it was a massacre, but I was so thankful because I needed it."

While McDermott admits that some things were cut, he assured Sher that it was "a gut punch" for him, too, because so much of what was cut could've worked well on stage — the main problem was ensuring the show would fit within a time limit. It is safe to say, though, that McDermott and Sher have brought out the best in each other since the outset with "The Middle."