These Hollywood stars not only had to share their first smooch with a co-worker
and in front of a production crew, but all the world got to see it
unfold onscreen. Here's a look at some movie scenes that captured an actor's first kiss.
Dakota Fanning might not have been the top-billed member of the cast for the 2002 rom-com Sweet Home
Alabama, but the film probably ranks among the most personally significant
parts of her filmography, because it just so happened to feature her first real-life kiss.
Fanning, who was still working her way to childhood stardom at the time,
appeared in the film's opening scene alongside another young actor named Thomas Curtis.
The two played the younger versions of the central southern sweethearts:
Reese Witherspoon’s Melanie Smooter and Josh Lucas’s Jake Perry.
Prancing around the beach during a thunderstorm, Jake pesters young Melanie to marry him. She
declines, saying she has a lot of life to lead, but she does cave to a kiss. However, their smooch
is quickly interrupted by Mother Nature making a rare second lightning strike in the same spot.
Fanning would later call the scene, quote, "hot stuff for a seven and a 10-year-old."
Even so, she also admitted that she, quote, "wasn't really into it"
and would wipe her mouth off between takes. Considering she was so young,
and it was so forced, Fanning doesn't actually count the moment as her real first kiss,
and insists the real deal came along several years later under very different circumstances.
There are probably millions of women who wish they could say their first kiss was
shared with Brad Pitt, especially in his prime Sexiest Man Alive-winning days.
For Kirsten Dunst, that was indeed a reality on the set of the 1994 thriller,
Interview with the Vampire. Unfortunately for her, she was just 11 years old at the time,
while he was already 30, so it was hardly a romantic experience for either actor.
She later remembered on Conan:
"Although I thought it was disgusting. I was 11. It would've been weird if I was like,
'This is amazing. I'm kissing Brad Pitt.'"
Mercifully, Dunst added that there was, quote, "no tongue" involved,
and it was PC enough so that the screen kiss didn't intimidate the
next fella to plant one on her offscreen a fellow eighth grader on a field trip.
Josh Hutcherson is likely better known for his onscreen kisses with Jennifer Lawrence in the
Hunger Games films, but long before he ever made way to the Capitol arena, the then-child
actor shared his first kiss in a scene for the 2005 romantic film Little Manhattan.
Opposite Charlotte Ray Rosenberg, Hutcherson starred as a kid named Gabe who goes in for a kiss
on the girl he likes, and then proceeds to torture himself with a very relatable inner monologue:
"Did I do it right?
I don't know. I have absolutely nothing to compare it to. My god, was I even close?"
As conflicted as his character was, Hutcherson has admitted to having been even more distressed
by the experience of having an audience for the shot. He told Seventeen Magazine that not
one but both of his parents were on-set for the scene to help calm his nerves,
in addition to the stacked production crew. He said:
"It was a horrible first kiss because I had a crew of like 50 people standing around watching me.
It was the most non-real, non-intimate moment that I could possibly have for my first kiss, I think."
Saoirse Ronan might be an accomplished actress now,
but long before she would become a household name, she made her feature film debut in
the little-seen 2007 Amy Heckerling dramedy I Could Never Be Your Woman.
Not only did it mark her first silver screen role, it also featured her first kiss.
Opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, the then-pre-teen starred as a kid full of the usual social fears
and anxieties, and is unsure if the boy she likes shares her interest. Lo and behold,
the boy – played by Rory Copus – does apparently share her crush,
and the two decide to lean in for a kiss after bonding over video games.
Ronan later told W Magazine that she had to do eight takes of the scene,
and felt that she really, quote, "suffered for her art" because she spent the whole time counting out
the requisite three seconds her smooches were supposed to last in her head. She explained:
"I was [a] proper prude, as well; I was not ready
to kiss a boy myself. [...] [Though] I was a phenomenal kisser by the end."
In the 2002 dramedy Roger Dodger, Jesse Eisenberg made his movie debut as a teen
whose uncle decides to take him out on the town to meet women.
They eventually link up with two women, and one of them, played by Jennifer Beals,
decides to give Eisenberg's character a kiss. Unlike others on this list,
it's hardly some small peck, and it certainly didn't seem to leave a bad taste for the actor.
"Don't spoil the wonderful time we had tonight."
Eisenberg told WNYC:
"I was 18 or 19 years old. It was the first movie I got to be in,
and I got to kiss her. That was before I even had a girlfriend or a date,
so it was a great experience. I don't know if she agrees, but for me it was life-changing."
Based on what Beals would later say of the experience,
she wasn't quite as personally affected by the scene,
but at least he can rewatch the film any time he likes if he wants to reminisce.
When it comes to kids kissing onscreen, it doesn't get much more authentic than
1991's My Girl. The now-classic tearjerker featured Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin,
who were each barely into double-digit age when they filmed the scene,
sharing a smooch just to find out what all the fuss is about.
Like their characters, they were each novices to the practice and
didn't seem to be overly impressed with the kissing after it was done.
Chlumsky was even quoted as saying "yuck" in between takes.
The pair went on to win the 1992 MTV Movie Award for "Best Kiss"
with Chlumsky accepting solo and quipping:
"Gee, my first kiss, and I get an award"
It may not have been impactful enough to keep the actors in touch later on in life,
but it did give generations of other kids a pro tip on what to do if it a first kiss
doesn't quite live up to the hype: Stand up and start reciting the Pledge of Allegiance,
because it sure beats saying the wrong thing in such a situation.
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