There is a certain formula to different kinds of movies, especially ones featuring romance. There will be fighting and conflict for our characters to resolve, but all of that leads us to the big moment where our two smoking hot stars end up locking lips.
These are the moments that audiences always look forward to, but our favorite stars don’t always feel the same way. In fact, some of them really ended up hating when they had to kiss their costars, even when those costars were some of the hottest people on the planet.
So, which of your favorite actors hated smooching other famous faces, and what made them hate the onscreen kissing so much? Keep reading to discover the answers!
Hugh Jackman
Les Misérables was quite the epic production, and it gave Hugh Jackman the chance to kiss Hollywood legend Nicole Kidman. Kissing her is what countless people have fantasized about, but Jackman learned to dread it for two very specific reasons.
First, as Elle reports, the actor gets shy about doing these kinds of things in front of so many people. “It’s never particularly comfortable making out with someone in front of 70 people,” he said. “That’s really not something that turns me on.”
Second, Jackman is married to Deborra-Lee Furness, a woman who once lived with Nicole Kidman and remains friends with her to this day. Whether she was visiting onset or just watching the movie from home, Jackman was understandably worried about his wife seeing him make out with her old roommate!
Reese Witherspoon
In the underrated movie Water For Elephants, Reese Witherspoon had the chance to do what countless fans have been dreaming of: to kiss Robert Pattinson onscreen. However, she ended up dreading locking her tonsils with the young actor, but not for the reasons you might expect.
As Witherspoon later told MTV News, Pattinson was dealing with a bad cold when the two had to lock lips for the film. “He did have a very runny nose, yeah,” she said. “It wasn’t appealing; it wasn’t pleasant.” Far from being offended, Pattison felt the same way and didn’t want to make out with someone (even someone as cute as Reese Witherspoon) while looking and feeling so gross.
James McAvoy
In the movie Wanted, James McAvoy gets to kiss Angelina Jolie, one of the most-fantasized about women in the world. However, he ended up dreading it more on principle than anything else. To hear McAvoy tell it, he worries about almost all of his onscreen kisses.
In a Today interview, McAvoy described their kissing scene by saying “It was awkward, sweaty, and not very nice.” He says that Hollywood movies always require actors to do long kisses, and it’s unpleasant to do so “just after you’ve had your breakfast, and you’re all funky in the mouth.” Weirdly enough, he also seems to be worried about either himself or his costars getting overly excited about romantic scenes. “If in this interview, it was written in that we had to have a kiss,” said, “I would hope we would be professional about it and that we wouldn’t get off on it.”
We’ll, uh, have to take your word on that, McAvoy!
Morena Baccarin
In Deadpool, Morena Baccarin got to do something that many think makes her the luckiest girl in the world. Specifically, she got to kiss Ryan Reynolds repeatedly. But to hear her tell the story, kissing the handsome actor wasn’t all that his fans might imagine it to be.
And it’s not because Reynolds is a bad kisser or anything. Instead, it’s all about the fact she had to kiss him while he still had the mask on. In an interview with People, she said, “kissing him in that mask is like kissing a giant latex condom. It basically just smells like rubber the entire time.”
She summed things up as simply and clearly as she possibly could: “it’s a little challenging to act with the mask.” Although we still feel Reynolds has enough crazy fans out there who would love to take her place.
Jennifer Lawrence
All of the actors we have discussed so far despised kissing a costar for one reason or another. However, if there’s an award for hating such scenes the most, we simply have to give it to Jennifer Lawrence.
Back when filming The Hunger Games, Lawrence had to sometimes kiss Liam Hemsworth, whose character was a potential romantic interest for her. And Hemsworth later told Jimmy Fallon that Lawrence (who is a good friend) did her best to sabotage their makeout scenes. “if we had a kissing scene, she would make a point of eating garlic or tuna fish or something that was disgusting.” She’d even skip brushing her teeth on occasion to make the kiss that much nastier!
On the set of the award-winning Silver Linings Playbook, she disliked kissing costar Bradley Cooper and didn’t mind saying so to his face. According to the Daily Mail, Lawrence told Cooper after the second take of a kissing scene her blunt criticism: “You’re a wet kisser.”
Finally, she hated kissing Chris Pratt on the set of Passengers for a completely different reason: his marital status. As she dished to The Hollywood Reporter, “It was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach,” she said. “And I knew it was my job, but I couldn’t tell my stomach that.”
We feel bad for Lawrence, but having seen that stinker of a movie, it wouldn’t hurt for everyone involved to feel at least a little guilty for bringing the film to life.