10 actors who said their onscreen kisses were anything but romantic

Brianna ZiglerMon, August 3, 2026 at 7:14 PM UTC

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Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in ‘The Adjustment Bureau’; Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Iron Man 2’Credit: Universal Pictures; Francois Duhamel/Industrial Light & Magic

Even though it’s just acting, a kiss between actors is still a real kiss — unless you’re Jonah Hill and Lauren London in the film You People, of course.

Otherwise, actors really do have to pucker up and act professional when filming an intimate scene. And despite the recent proliferation of intimacy coordinators, a kiss can’t always be as picture perfect as it looks. Actors are real people too, and locking lips can be an uncomfortable experience.

Sometimes someone has bad breath, or someone’s husband or boyfriend is watching; sometimes it’s like kissing a sibling — after already playing siblings once before.

Ahead, Entertainment Weekly takes a look at 10 onscreen romances where at least one party involved admitted that their kiss was far from cinematic.

01 of 10

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in ‘The Adjustment Bureau’Credit: Andrew Schwartz/Universal

John Krasinski and Matt Damon are good friends, both proud Boston natives. But the first time they met was more than a little awkward, because Damon was playing the love interest of Krasinski’s wife, Emily Blunt.

While filming 2010’s The Adjustment Bureau, Damon and Blunt became good friends, and Damon admitted on The Today Showthat kissing her was “very awkward” because of the rapport they’d struck up.

During a 2016 appearance on Conan, Krasinski revealed that he first met Damon while he and Blunt were filming a passionate kiss atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Afterwards, Damon came up to Krasinski and said, “‘Hey, nice to meet ya, I was just totally tonguing your girl!’”

Despite the awkward joke, the two have remained friends, and Damon apologized immediately in the moment. “To this day, he can’t get over the fact that that’s the first thing he said to me,” Krasinski said.

02 of 10

Nina Dobrev and Aaron Paul

Nina Dobrev and Aaron Paul in ‘The Get Out’Credit: Vertical Entertainment

Longtime pals Nina Dobrev and Aaron Paul had to share a kiss in the film The Get Out (2026). But Dobrev admitted that kissing someone she’d been friends with for so long was not an easy feat.

“Aaron and I have known each other — him and his wife and I met, I think in 2011?” Dobrev said in June while on Live with Kelly and Mark. “So we’ve been friends for a while.”

When Mark Consuelos asked if that history made their intimate scene weird, she replied, “Very.”

“It was like making out with my brother,” she continued. “Don’t recommend it.”

03 of 10

Kit Harington and Sophie Turner

Sophie Turner and Kit Harington in ‘The Dreadful’Credit: Lionsgate

Making Kit Harington and Sophie Turner kiss onscreen feels like it should be illegal, because they’d played siblings on Game of Thrones since Turner was a child. Now that they’re both adults, it’s suddenly okay to cast them as love interests?? Yuck!

And that’s exactly what it felt like for Harington and Turner themselves; they both literally gagged after filming their kissing scene for the gothic horror film The Dreadful (2026), as revealed in behind-the-scenes-footage.

Turner had previously been on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2025, where she discussed the unpleasantness of sharing a kiss with her TV brother. “We get on set and it’s the first kissing scene and we are both retching. Like, really, it is vile. It was the worst. Another really bad moment in my career,” she said.

04 of 10

Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe (and Rupert Grint)

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1’Credit: Universal

For Emma Watson, kissing both of her Harry Potter costars in the final two films was a difficult task, especially since the trio had literally grown up together.

Speaking about filming the scene in which Ron (Rupert Grint) sees a Horcrux-created vision of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Hermione (Watson) kissing, Watson said, “Oh, it was the weirdest thing ever, and they only told us about the silver body paint the day before. They were like, ‘Oh, and P.S., we hope you don’t mind but we’d like you both to be topless and covered in silver paint.’ I was like, ‘Ookay,’ if it wasn’t weird enough before. [Laughs] So yeah, it was bizarre.”

Then, on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Watson recalled how “horrible” it was to kiss Grint for the scene where Ron and Hermione finally act on their feelings.

“It was the most horrible thing I ever had to do,” she said, laughing. “It just felt like incest.”

05 of 10

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Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr.

Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘Iron Man 3’Credit: Zade Rosenthal/Marvel Studios

In 2020, Gwyneth Paltrow interviewed Kate Hudson for her Goop podcast, and the two actresses discussed the worst onscreen kisses they’ve ever shared. When Hudson revealed that she didn’t necessarily love kissing Matthew McConaughey in Fool’s Gold because of environmental circumstances, Paltrow confessed that she saw her Iron Man love interest, Robert Downey Jr., as a brother.

“Like with Robert, like when I kissed him and I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” said Paltrow. “This is literally like kissing my brother.”

06 of 10

Liam Hemsworth and Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth in ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2’Credit: Lionsgate

Liam Hemsworth admitted on The Tonight Show that kissing his Hunger Games costar Jennifer Lawrence was far from the best kiss he’s ever had — even though Lawrence once coyly admitted they’d kissed off-screen, too.

On-camera, though, was a different story. “Any time I had to kiss Jennifer was pretty uncomfortable, really awkward,” Hemsworth admitted.

This was because Lawrence made a point to make the experience as unpleasant as possible for her costar. “She’s one of my best friends, I love her,” Hemsworth prefaced. “But if we had a kissing scene she would make a point of eating garlic or tuna fish or something that was disgusting. And right before the scene she’d be like, ‘Yeah, I had tuna, I had garlic, and I didn’t brush my teeth.’ Fantastic, I can’t wait to get in there and taste it.”

07 of 10

Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard

Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown on ‘Stranger Things’Credit: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

While Stranger Things stars Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown initially said that there was “nothing awkward” about filming the first kiss between their characters, Mike Wheeler and Eleven, both actors ended up singing a different tune a few years later.

In a 2023 lie detector interview with Vanity Fair, Brown called Wolfhard a “lousy” kisser. And in an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Wolfhard admitted that he once “headbutted”the Electric State actress.

“The romantic way of putting it was that I headbutted her, but I was twelve so, you know,” he said. “I probably would have done the same thing if I was not onscreen in front of the entire world.”

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08 of 10

Linda Gray and Larry Hagman

Larry Hagman and Linda Gray on ‘Dallas’Credit: CBS/Courtesy Everett

In order to make their kissing scenes even more awkward, the late Larry Hagman would play practical jokes on his Dallas costar Linda Gray.

Hagman played J.R. Ewing on the primetime soap for all 14 seasons, while Gray played his wife, Sue Ellen. In 2025, Gray admitted on the That’s Classic podcast that the intimate scenes between their characters were extra uncomfortable thanks to Hagman’s diabolical jokes.

“Larry didn’t like intimate... he didn’t like the kissing scenes,” Gray said. “He didn’t like that. Not that he didn’t like them, but he just felt, you know, it was awkward.”

So, in order to lighten the mood, he heightened the absurdity. “He would do things like eat an onion before a kissing scene with me,” Gray said. “Like, ‘Oh, great, Larry. Thanks.’”

“And then he would eat peanut butter... and I had to keep straight,” she added.

09 of 10

Orlando Bloom and Zoe Saldaña

Orlando Bloom and Zoe Saldaña in ‘Haven’Credit: Haven Distribution

Orlando Bloom and Zoe Saldaña weren’t strangers to each other when they costarred in the 2004 crime thriller Haven — they had both been in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl the year before. But knowing each other in advance didn’t help with their kiss scenes, it seems.

In a conversation with PEOPLE, the interviewer mentioned that Saldaña had said kissing Bloom was “gross.” Bloom went on to share that exact sentiment.

“I hated kissing Zoe too! I was like, ‘Take your tongue out of my mouth, please. Your boyfriend is standing right there.’ Most people think kissing beautiful costars must be great. But it’s always awkward, man,” he said.

10 of 10

Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale

Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale in ‘Total Recall’Credit: Columbia Pictures/Alamy

Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale starred in the 2012 remake of Total Recall,which was directed by Beckinsale’s husband at the time, Les Wiseman. While appearing on Conan to promote the film, Farrell admitted that it was difficult kissing his costar when her husband was looking right at them.

“It was moderately uncomfortable, not beating her up, because you don’t actually beat each other up. But kissing her was a little bit dodgy,” the In Bruges actor said. He then joked, “Her husband wasn’t kind enough to leave the room.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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