Just like in real life, in movies and TV shows, not everything we see was written in the script.
Kissing scenes aren't excluded from these unexpected moments. From the tender to the
hilarious to the controversial, here's a look at some onscreen kisses that were never supposed to happen.
David O. Russell didn't cast Jennifer Lawrence in his 2013 black comedy American Hustle until
very late into the casting process. The director told Vanity Fair that even though she was
young for the role, Lawrence had a, quote, "timeless quality," and that "she took to
the part, chemically." Since we’re talking about an improvised kiss scene between Lawrence
and Amy Adams, it would be interesting to learn exactly which chemicals Russell was talking about.
Lawrence played Rosalyn Rosenfeld, wife to conman Irving Rosenfeld, played by Christian
Bale. At a pivotal moment in the film, Rosalyn argues with Irving's mistress Sydney, played
by Amy Adams, in a bathroom, and in the middle of the confrontation Rosalyn aggressively
kisses Sydney and then bursts into cruel laughter.
Russell said the kiss was improvised, recalling that the idea was pitched to him, but that
it didn’t exactly fit his vision. In a 2013 press conference about the movie, Adams said
even though the kiss was her idea, the credit for the moment goes to Lawrence. Adams went
on to say the kiss:
"[...] didn't just feel like a moment where two girls are going to kiss onscreen it felt
emotional,"
and called Lawrence's laugh that followed the kiss "genius."
(laughter)
In 2014's Edge of Tomorrow, United Defense Force Major William Cage, played by Tom Cruise,
is arrested by a superior officer for insubordination during an alien invasion. After his records
are deliberately altered to make it look like he's a private, Cage is forced into action,
where he quickly dies in battle only to discover he's trapped in a time loop where he relives
the same day leading up to his death over and over. His only ally is Rita Vrataski,
played by Emily Blunt, a highly regarded sergeant who's also the only person who accepts that
his time-looping dilemma is real.
“Find me when you wake up.”
Speaking to Film School Rejects, screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie said the filmmakers
struggled to find a place in the film for Cage and Rita to kiss, but nothing they tried
seemed genuine. He said:
"[I]t always felt false. It always felt like they weren't focused on what was really important."
McQuarrie and his colleagues gave up on the kiss completely, but apparently Blunt hadn't.
McQuarrie said that as they shot a scene in which Rita says goodbye to Cage:
"[Blunt] just kissed him goodbye in the moment. And it was not in the script. It was not even discussed."
According to McQuarrie after the scene was filmed, Blunt said:
"It just felt right. It felt right and I did it."
In season 4 of Riverdale, CW's teen drama paid tribute to Hedwig and the Angry Inch
a stage musical later adapted to film about an East German trans rock singer in the '80s.
In the episode "Chapter Seventy-Four: Wicked Little Town," Casey Cott’s Kevin Keller
decides it's time for Riverdale High to host variety shows again. When Principal Honey
warns Kevin not to perform any numbers from Hedwig, Kevin and his friends fight back by
performing multiple numbers from the musical. During the Hedwig original "Tear Me Down"
Kevin and K.J. Apa’s Archie lock lips, and according to Cott even though the kiss was
never planned, it absolutely had to happen.
Cott explained to TV Insider that there's a part of the Hedwig stage musical when the
titular hero goes into the audience and kisses an audience member. Inspired by this, while
filming his performance of "Tear Me Down" with Cott's Kevin Keller playing Hedwig Cott
kissed Apa on the cheek. But then, as Cott explained:
"[...] the next take I went in to do the same thing and [Apa] turned his face and we just
kind of laid a big one on each other. And then after that, we were like 'This is exactly
what it should be. This is, like, perfect for this number.'"
Thankfully, everyone agreed, and the kiss made the final cut.
From the beginning of the sci-fi crime drama Person of Interest, fans noticed romantic
tension between Jim Caviezel’s CIA operative, John Reese, and NYPD Detective Joss Carter,
played by Taraji P. Henson. However, it takes until the third season for those feelings
to find any kind of physical expression.
In season 3's "The Crossing," Reese and Carter finally share a kiss while they're hiding
from the bad guys in a morgue; sadly, it's destined to be their first and last. At the
end of the episode, the corrupt cop Patrick Simmons ambushes them and shoots them both
before running away. They're both hit, but Carter is mortally wounded
and she dies in Reese's arms.
According to the show's producers, even though the kiss was a landmark moment for the characters,
it was a decision the actors made completely on their own. Person of Interest executive
producer Greg Plageman told The Hollywood Reporter:
"[...] the kiss was not scripted. We never wrote it in [...] It wasn't in every take;
there were takes where they didn't do it and there were takes where they did."
Plageman went on to say that when they looked at the takes without the kiss, it felt like
something was missing and that the kiss deepened the connection between the characters.
Sometimes, an unplanned kiss in a TV show or a movie will generate controversy felt
well outside the editing room, and that's something Tommy Davidson learned while filming
the 1998 romantic comedy Woo.
Jada Pinkett Smith played Davidson's love interest in the romcom, and in his 2020 memoir
Living in Color: What's Funny About Me, Davidson writes that neither he nor Smith were satisfied
with the script's ending. He says he pitched the idea of ending Woo with the couple dancing
in the middle of a city street, and apparently everyone liked the idea. While dancing with
his co-star in the new scene, Davidson kissed Smith without warning. Though he said Smith
flinched when he kissed her, at the time he, quote, "didn't think it was all that big of a deal."
But there was someone who thought it was a big deal Jada Pinkett Smith's husband, Will
Smith. According to Davidson, after the scene was shot, Will Smith followed Davidson into
his trailer and things got very heated between the two. Davidson explained:
"There was a moment there when we might have come to blows. My reactive fight-or-flight
instinct was triggered and I could have exploded."
Thankfully, Jada stepped in and helped to calm things down, and Davidson and Will remained
good friends afterward.
“I was just about to retaliate!”
Between the '60s and '80s, Valerie Leon made a name for herself playing young beauties,
particularly in James Bond flicks she appeared in both 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me and 1983's
Never Say Never Again. In a 2017 interview with WestEndExtra, Leon named one of the Bond
actors Roger Moore as one of her favorite actors to work with. Along with The Spy Who
Loved Me, she worked with Moore in the TV series The Saint and the 1978 war film The Wild Geese.
But Leon said that one of her favorite collaborations with Moore was on the early '70s action comedy
TV series The Persuaders! She appears as Space Queen in "The Long Goodbye," as one of a number
of women claiming to be heiress to a dead scientist. She recalled:
"Roger gave me an unscripted kiss. I just closed my eyes and enjoyed it. They kept it
in."
There have been plenty of steamy moments on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy, but in the
show's season 14 finale, there was one that was less steamy but plenty surprising for
almost everyone involved.
Early in the episode "All of Me" even though she's about to get married to Justin Chambers’
Alex, and everyone insists they can't see one another before the wedding Camilla Luddington’s
Jo rushes to see Alex and her other friends, because she has news she can't keep to herself.
She's just learned she's been tapped for a highly sought-after surgery fellowship at
Massachusetts General Hospital. Ignoring all the protests about not seeing her fiancé,
Jo announces it to her fiends, predictably kisses Alex, and then much less predictably
kisses Jessica Capshaw’s Arizona, before giving her fiancé a second kiss.
It's just a quick kiss but Capshaw is visibly surprised, and the moment didn't go unnoticed
by the audience. Asked about the kiss on Twitter, Luddington responded:
"Ha!!! It was unscripted but I thought hello?!!! Who wouldn't want to also smooch Arizona Robbins."
Fittingly, you could interpret it as a kiss goodbye, as "All of Me" was Capshaw's final
appearance on the series.
The Model Elle Macpherson hasn't done a lot of acting work, and when she starred in 1997's
The Edge, she'd done even less. Macpherson plays Mickey, wife of billionaire Charles
Morse, played by Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins and co-star Alec Baldwin who plays photographer
Bob Green have the lion's share of screen time. Early in the film Morse suspects Bob
is having an affair with Mickey, and this is confirmed at a particularly inconvenient
time when Morse and Green are trapped in the wilderness and fighting for their lives against
a massive Kodiak bear.
In a 2011 episode of The Graham Norton Show, Macpherson said her unexpected kiss with Hopkins
took place during the auditioning process for The Edge rather than during the filming;
and it wasn't so much that the kiss was unexpected, but the type of kiss was a shock. She said,
during the audition, the casting directors emphasized that in spite of the 27-year age
difference between her and Hopkins it was important that they feel, quote, "connected"
and "intimate with each other," so it was suggested they kiss. Macpherson explained
to Norton that, having not done much acting work, she wasn't sure if she should, quote,
"kiss with the tongue, without the tongue," and she erred on the side of, well... the
side of tongue.
"He went so red. He was flustered I got the job, though."
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