Entertainment
It takes some serious bravery to commit to your first kiss. Clammy nerves creep up your spine, your palms get sweaty, and you overthink your hand and head placement as the kiss is landing — all while trying to take a mental snapshot of what's supposed to be a super special moment. That experience is unnerving enough to tackle in private, so imagine what it would be like on camera. Many child actors, including Selena Gomez, Millie Bobby Brown, Keke Palmer, and more have done just that, with heir first pecks forever living in movie and TV history. And in the years since their scripted smooches, some of those actors have shared what it was really like to have their first kisses on screen. Spoiler alert: none of them were particularly romantic.
Some of the actors on the list below fumbled through many takes before landing the kiss the way the director wanted, while others got through it with little struggle. All of their experiences were different from each other, but the actors share one thing in common — now, they can all look back on the kisses and laugh. (And rewatch them, too.)
So next time you lean in for that first kiss with someone and feel the nerves coming on, just breathe and remember that these below smooches exist.
1
Josh Hutcherson
Hutcherson's thoughts likely mimicked his Little Manhattan character, Gabe's, when he had to plant one on Charlie Ray, who played Rosemary, in this 2005 movie. "Did I do it right? I don't know, I have absolutely nothing to compare it to," Gabe thinks to himself in the film. "My God, was I even close?"
Hutcherson was 11 years old at the time, and in September, he told Seventeen that it was a pretty terrible experience. "I was filming in New York City and my mom surprised me by flying my dad in for the kiss scene for support," he said. "But it was a horrible first kiss because I had like a crew of like 50 people standing around and watching me. It was the most non-real, non-intimate moment that I could possibly have my first kiss, I think."
2
Dakota Fanning
Fanning has a lengthy resume in the entertainment industry that began when she was very young, so it should come as no surprise that she had her first kiss on screen. She played a young Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, when she was seven. "I don't remember feeling embarrassed at all," Fanning said in a 2011 interview with W Magazine. But back in 2002, her younger self shared a different reaction to the experience on The Tonight Show. "Beforehand I was really, really nervous because I'd never kissed a boy before and it was on the lips," Fanning said. "But then I kind of got used to it and it was kind of fun after a while."
3
Ben Savage
The first kiss between Corey Matthews and Topanga Lawrence was long-anticipated among the Boy Meets World fan base. And the characters' first kiss was the actors' first kiss in real life, too. "It was my first official kiss on a TV show in front of millions of people," Ben Savage told Huffington Post in 2014. "So it’s a lot of pressure for a little kid. It’s still a lot of pressure.”
4
Keke Palmer
Palmer shared her first kiss ever with co-star Corbin Bleu in the 2007 Disney Channel original movie Jump In! “I was very, very nervous. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the first person I am kissing outside of my family.' It was real scary for me,” she told Access Hollywood later on. But it turned out to not be that big of a deal. “Corbin was so sweet about it," Palmer recalled.
5
Selena Gomez & Dylan Sprouse
Gomez's first kiss took place on the set of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody with Dylan Sprouse, who played Zack. "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," she told Twist Magazine in 2015. "It ended up being the most awkward kiss in the world. But I was 12 so it was okay and it was good." Turns out, in an interview with Young Hollywood, Sprouse recalled the kiss as his first, too. "Said the actor, "I was a chubby lad and I wasn't very successful with women for a longtime, but I think my first kiss was on a set and I think it might have been with Selena Gomez."
6
Victoria Justice
Like Gomez, Justice's first kiss was on the same Disney Channel set for Suite Life. Justice told Popstar! Magazine that it happened in front of a live audience in 2005. "That was cool, and we're still good friends," she said — of her kissing partner, Cole Sprouse.
7
Kirsten Dunst
Dunst had to kiss Pitt on set of Interview with the Vampire, when she was just 11 and the actor was 30. Dunst was clearly affected by the scene, saying in a 1994 interview with the Associated Press that she "hated" the kiss, and in 2013, she told Bullett Magazine that although "Everyone at the time was like, ‘You’re so lucky you kissed Brad Pitt... I thought it was disgusting. I didn’t kiss anyone else until I was 16, I think. I was a late bloomer.”
8
Kay Panabaker
As if Brad Pitt wasn't intimidating enough, Kay Panabaker had her first kiss with Zac Efron on the set of Summerland. "It was totally embarrassing in front of the crew," she later said of the kiss, speaking at the LA Teen Festival in 2010. "[The crew] were all like my dads."
9
Mila Kunis
Long before they were married, Kunis nervously anticipated her first kiss with Ashton Kutcher as Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show. "I was so nervous and uncomfortable. I had the biggest crush on him," she told People in 2012. "I totally perfumed myself and I was like, ‘Hey, I feel better about myself.'"
10
Millie Bobby Brown
Mike planted a kiss on Eleven during Season 1, and it was Brown's first kiss in real life. "Kissing sucks!" she said on The Tonight Show in 2016. "It was really awkward because everyone was there. My dad was sitting there, I mean, it was like, awful."
11
So, if you think your first kiss was bad, or if you're worried about one coming up, just remember that these actors probably had it worse. Thankfully, though, no one ever said your first kiss was supposed to be the best.
