Expect Gwyneth Paltrow to stick to her principles.
While she and Ethan Hawke share a number of tender moments, including some that would qualify as intimate, in Alfonso Cuarón's 1998 adaptation of Great Expectations, Paltrow passed on doing what would have been—as the actors described it 27 years later—a far more explicit love scene.
"Do you remember Alfonso pitching you the love scene?" Hawke asked Paltrow in a December conversation for Vanity Fair.
"Oh my god," she recalled, "he's like [in the Mexican director's accent], 'And then he's going to go down on you,' and I was like, 'Oh my god, my father's going to have a heart attack!'" (Paltrow was very close to her dad, Bruce Paltrow, who died in 2002.)
Hawke continued, also mimicking Cuarón (whom he called a "wonderful lunatic"), "'He's going to go down on you, the camera's going to go down your belly, and then it's going to go up your breasts! And then it's going to go in your face as you reach ecstasy! And when you reach ecstasy, the light will explode like to the sun!'"
"And," the Blue Moon star added, "I remember Gwyneth is like, 'Alfonso, I'm never going to do that.'"
But Paltrow, who played Estella opposite Hawke's Finn (known as Pip in the Charles Dickens novel) in the film, would never say never.
"In my early career," the 53-year-old recalled, "I was really self-conscious about my dad and grandfather seeing this kind of stuff. Like, it really bothered me. Now I wouldn't care."
Hawke, 55, complimented Paltrow for being "amazing" about it.
"You weren't petulant," he told her. "You were just saying, like, 'Look, I'm not going to do this.'"
"Maybe I was too prudish in the moment," Paltrow said. But Hawke demurred, saying, "I don't think you are."
"I was definitely worried about it," she reiterated.
More importantly, however, Paltrow assured Hawke that a kiss she shares with Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme, now in theaters, did not take place in the same spot in Central Park where Stella's lips brushed against Finn's at the water fountain in Great Expectations.
"I think it's the same damn location," Hawke said, feigning scorn.
"Ne-ver, I never would have done that," Paltrow insisted. "I never would have desecrated our makeout spot like that."
In any case, it wasn't even the first time they had kissed. That honor went to Paltrow's onetime apartment on Prince Street during a game of Truth or Dare, played at a time when the actors ran in the same circle, having met through Paltrow's then-boyfriend (and Hawke's Dead Poets Society costar) Robert Sean Leonard.
"What a highlight," Paltrow recalled.
Hawke admitted, "I didn't want that to happen on that stupid game. I had different plans for that moment."
At least their Great Expectations kisses were flawless. But that isn't the case for all movie kisses. Read on for tales of onscreen smooches that went spectacularly awry:
Dane Cook
For all of her complaints about love scene partners, Kate Hudson may be the one who's mastered how to lose a guy in 10 seconds. Griping about their interaction in 2008's My Best Friend's Girl, Dane Cook told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live, "I think she purposely ate a feast of onions right before the scene. I had to burn her on that one."
Reese Witherspoon
Not gonna lie, Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon's sexy Water for Elephants scene with Robert Pattinson sounds like a bit of a circus. "I was doing it when I had a really bad cold," the Twilight heartthrob revealed during his MTV First: Robert Pattinson special in 2011. "My nose is running all over the place, and it was in one of the additional photography scenes, and Reese had this wig on, and literally, I was wiping my nose on her wig."
Witherspoon agreed it was a bit, uh, hairy. "He did have a very runny nose, yeah," she said. "It wasn't appealing; it wasn't pleasant."
Selena Gomez
Admittedly, Selena Gomez doesn't have the sweetest memories from her stint on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Paired off with Dylan Sprouse for her first-ever smooch, "I actually leaned in to kiss him, and I had my eyes closed a little too early and I ended up missing, like, half of his lip," the former child star recalled to Tiger Beat. "It ended up being the most awkward kiss in the world. But I was 12, so it was okay and it was good."
Actually, the worst part, she said on The Kelly Clarkson Show, was that she actually had a major crush on Cole Sprouse, "Then I guest-starred on the show, but I kissed his brother!"
Emma Watson
The magic wasn't exactly there when pals Emma Watson and Rupert Grint took their friendship to the next level seven films into the Harry Potter franchise. With so much build-up, the then-19-year-old admitted to MTV News that she was buzzing with anxiety.
"I was like, 'Do I use tongue? Do I not use tongue? Do I cover my teeth? What do I do? Do I go first? Oh my God!'" she shared in the 2009 chat. "I ended up pouncing on Rupert. I was so desperate to get it over. After the first take he was like, 'Whoa, there! Where did that come from?' I was like, 'Sorry!'"
Liam Hemsworth
The odds were pretty much never in Liam Hemsworth's favor when he had to get close to Hunger Games costar Jennifer Lawrence.
"When you look at it on the outside, it looks like a great picture," he said of the unrequited romance between District 12's Katniss and Gale. "She's one of my best friends, I love her, but if we had a kissing scene, she would make a point of eating garlic or tuna fish or something that was disgusting. Right before the scene, she'd be like, 'Yeah, I ate tuna,' or 'I had garlic, and I didn't brush my teeth.' And I'd be like, 'Fantastic, I can't wait to get in there and taste it!'"
Josh Hutcherson
Josh Hutcherson would agree that his Hunger Games paramour's pecks were less than ideal ("There was a lot of slobber"), but a bit of dampness is nothing compared to what he experienced in 2005's Little Manhattan.
Just 11 at the time, he embarked on a romantic scene with "a crew of, like, 50 people standing around watching me," he relayed to Seventeen in 2013, "and it was the most non-real, non-intimate way that I could possibly have for my first kiss I think."
Ashley Tisdale
Ashley Tisdale told Elle she had to get pal Zac Efron's head in the game when they were paired up on an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Already weirded out by having to do that with someone who's "like my brother," she fully balked when he tried to slip her the tongue.
"At the time, he was used to acting on Warner Bros, which is The CW," she explained of her High School Musical costar. "I was like, 'Get away from me!' I closed my mouth so fast. I was like, 'This is Disney Channel! We don't kiss like that on Disney Channel!'"
Zac Efron
Efron got schooled once again on the set of 2020's Summerland. "At lunch, they served fish," he explained on the Graham Norton Show of the day he was set to get into it with costar Kay Panabaker. "And next was the kissing scene. I was very nervous. We went in for the kiss. I got up this close. I shut my eyes. I'm ready to go in and nothing happens. I'm going further and nothing's happening. I'm getting further and further, thinking eventually we're going to touch. And then I hear, 'Oh my gosh, did you have salmon for lunch? Seriously?'"
Harsh, but he learned a valuable lesson: "I carry a toothbrush everywhere I go now."
Tobey Maguire
Among Tobey Maguire's most terrifying stunts on the Spider-Man set: That iconic kiss with, at the time, real-life girlfriend Kirsten Dunst.
"I was hanging upside down, it was really late at night, it was raining, and the whole time, I had rainwater running up my nose," he explained to Parade in 2007. "Then, when Kirsten rolled back the wet mask, she cut off the air completely."
Kirsten Dunst
Here's something you don't hear often: Kissing Brad Pitt kinda sucks. To be fair, Dunst was only 11 at the time of shooting 1994's Interview With the Vampire and the future Sexiest Man Alive was in his thirties.
So we get why she told ET, "I hated it so much because Brad was like my older brother on set and it's kind of like kissing your brother. It's weird because he's an older guy and I had to kiss him on the lips, so it was gross."
It's an opinion she holds eternal, telling the outlet in 2019, "Yeah, it was gross! I stand by that. It would have been so much creepier if an 11-year-old was like, 'It was great.' You'd be like, 'There's something wrong with this child.'"
Penn Badgley
It was the best of times, and then the worst of times for frequent Gossip Girl make-out partners Penn Badgley and Blake Lively. At one point, the actor told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live in 2015, he considered his then-girlfriend as his greatest-ever onscreen kiss, "because we actually had a relationship at the time."
As for his worst, he quipped, "Maybe Blake after we broke up."
Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell found himself navigating a tricky tightrope when making out with Total Recall costar Kate Beckinsale. "She's married to the director," he explained to Conan O'Brien of why shooting the 2012 flick, helmed by Beckinsale's then-husband Len Wiseman was "moderately uncomfortable."
The experience was "a little bit dodgy," he continued, "'cause the director, her husband, wasn't kind enough to leave the room." Perhaps he could have asked him for notes?
Millie Bobby Brown
Is there anything worse than a surveilling husband? Millie Brown Brown would hazard so.
Just 15 when she first landed one on Stranger Things' cohort Finn Wolfhard, "My dad was watching," she revealed. "My dad watched the whole thing, my whole family was there, and it was the most awkward thing in the world." So, we're guessing, like, a one out of 11?
Morena Baccarin
Hazards of the job: While puckering up for Ryan Reynolds seems like a sweet gig, his Deadpool costar Morena Baccarin revealed it wasn't exactly super. "I keep saying that kissing him in that mask is like kissing a giant latex condom," she joked to People Now. "It basically just smells like rubber the entire time."
James Franco
Playing the groom to Sienna Miller's bride in 2008's Camille was actually kind of a pain, James Franco shared. "I think we kissed once in that film and it wasn't at all intense—there was no rolling around or anything," he has said of the rom-com. "Sienna's molar was giving her pain so she called the dentist!"
Miles Teller
After filming romance The Spectacular Now with Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller shared every last dirty detail at a 2013 screening.
"Before our first kissing scene, Shailene took these Chinese dirt supplements and shoved them in her mouth," he recalled. "It's like a dirt pouch, and it smells like crap." Ah, eau de romance!