Actors can sell you a perfect on-screen kiss with soft lighting, romantic music, and a camera angle that deserves an Oscar. But behind the scenes, it’s still two real humans doing a very unglamorous job while a crew watches. Over the years, a few celebs have been called out by co-stars for kisses that were less than cinematic.
Here are eight famous Hollywood actors and actresses you would assume are great at kissing, but they actually suck.
1. Posh Spice, aka Victoria Beckham
You’d think Victoria Beckham, who’s famously married to David Beckham, would have the “perfect kiss” technique locked down. But Corey Haim once claimed she kissed in a way he found unpleasant, describing it as oddly aggressive. To think that the world’s most polished Spice Girl allegedly used to kiss like a hungry gremlin rather than a fashion icon.
2. Robert Pattinson
For a while, Pattinson was the human embodiment of every teen’s crush, thanks to his broody portrayal of Edward Cullen in Twilight. But according to Reese Witherspoon, his co-star in Water for Elephants, the first experience of kissing him on camera while he had a cold wasn’t something she’d ever want to go through again. Even Pattinson has admitted before that he’s not exactly a legendary kisser, which is quite nice to hear, as self-awareness is always a big plus.
3. Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence has been around the Hollywood block for a cool minute, and, apparently, she treated kissing scenes like a prank opportunity. She’s joked in interviews that before kissing her Hunger Games co-stars, she’d eat things like tuna or mustard and pretend it wasn’t a big deal. Liam Hemsworth has also mentioned it being pretty uncomfortable, because most people don’t want to kiss someone who just inhaled a deli order.
4. Shailene Woodley
Shailene Woodley is famous for using homemade toothpaste, foraging, and making other similar life choices. Her Divergent co-star Miles Teller has said her herbal supplements tasted awful and she’d sometimes take them right before kissing scenes. In other words, her commitment to health made the lives of people around her more miserable. Woodley has also joked that they’d tease each other back and forth about what tasted worse. It’s kind of hilarious, but also a bit insane.
5. James Franco
James Franco has played plenty of charismatic characters, but kissing reviews from co-stars have been a bit 3-star-ish. Vanessa Hudgens, for example, wasn’t thrilled after filming a kissing scene in Spring Breakers. Another victim, Zoey Deutch, has also described Franco’s kissing as forgettable and told him his breath wasn’t exactly red-carpet-ready. This one must sting the worst because you either want to get a yay or nay feedback, never a “meh.”
6. Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts has one of the most famous smiles in Hollywood, so you’d assume kissing her would be like going to Disneyland. However, Hugh Grant has joked that her big mouth made kissing her quite an awkward experience. It’s also classic Grant poking fun at people. Realistically, it probably wasn’t bad so much as different, but when a British rom-com lead calls anything “a bit much,” you can practically see the other person sweating.
7. Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford has played Han Solo and Indiana Jones, who basically became a template for every grumpy character ever. But at least one co-star, Helen Mirren, once roasted his on-screen kissing skills in an interview. She wasn’t calling him out for being a bad person or anything, but she found his kissing to be very mediocre and a bit unnatural. To be fair, this is very on-brand for Ford, who’s capable of surviving anything, looks great in a jacket, but may approach kissing like it’s an alien artifact that needs instructions to be activated.
8. Kate Hudson
Kate Hudson has smooched it out with plenty of A-listers throughout her rom-com career. Yet, according to Dane Cook, she came on set one day wafting like a freshly juiced onion. And of course, that day was the “kissing scene” day. Did she forget, or was it intentional? We may never learn the true story, but this little anecdote will be stuck with her forever. Onions may be delicious to some, but for most people, they’re also the sworn enemy of romance. If your breath enters the room before you do, you might as well go back home.
