A scene from Thor: The Dark World (source: Walt Disney)
Romance movies and TV shows just wouldn’t be the same without kissing scenes. The characters chase each other, flirt, chase each other, until they reach the fateful moment when they can seal their love. But, often, what appears on the screen does not correspond to reality.
Kisses might appear romantic on screen, but in some cases, digital effects and directorial tricks are actually used to fake a kiss even when it didn’t actually happen on set. Let’s find out the most sensational cases together.
The kiss scene in You People (source: Netflix)
In the movie You Peopleinterpreted by Jonah Hill And LaurenLondon, two Los Angeles millennials from different social backgrounds fall in love and face the toughest test: knowing their respective parents. In the end though, love triumphs and the film ends with a passionate kiss that never actually happened on the set.
“I don’t even know if I should say this but in the final scene they don’t even kiss”, he revealed Andrew Schulz (who plays the protagonist’s cousin in the film), host of the Brilliant Idiots podcast. “It’s Cgi… Because in reality they stopped at least six centimeters away from each other”. In fact, the shooting of the film took place in 2021, so the actors had to maintain a safe social distance to help prevent the spread of Covid. Next time you happen to rewatch You Peopleyou can notice and easily notice the trick.
The film 6 degrees of separation was one of the first to offer a Will Smith, famous at the time mainly for being the Prince of Bel-Air, a dramatic role: that of Paul, a mysterious boy who invades the daily life of a couple of wealthy art dealers with an excuse. Smith, in one scene of the film, was supposed to kiss Anthony Michael Hallwho played Trent, a student with a crush on the protagonist.
Just before shooting the kiss scene, Smith told the director he wasn’t going to do it. In the end, they had to use a stunt double and shoot the scene from behind. “He was very immature of me,” Smith later admitted to Entertainment Weekly years later. At the end of Thor: The Dark Worldthe Marvel superhero celebrates his feat with a passionate kiss with Jane (Natalie Portman). Surprisingly though, Hemsworth didn’t actually kiss Portman during the making of the scene, due to her being unable to participate in the filming.
The producers therefore decided to use a stunt double and shoot the scene from behind. Hemsworth was given a list of stunt doubles to choose from, but the actor decided to kiss his wife instead Elsa Patakywho disguised herself as Jane to film the scene.
The offending kiss in Beautiful (source: CBS)
Of all the ways producers have tried to bring kissing scenes home during the pandemic, while strictly adhering to social distancing protocols, the one chosen for the series Beautiful it might be the most ridiculous. Carter Walton (Lawrence Saint-Victor) and Zoe Buckingham (Kiara Barnes) actually appear to be kissing on screen, but there’s a reason Zoe looks so stiff: the actress has been replaced with a mannequin.
Apparently, the actors found it just as hilarious as the audience. Barnes tweeted in 2020: “We had to do a billion takes because everyone was laughing and screwing up the audio every time.” Even in the long-running Australian soap opera Neighboursthe writers didn’t want to rule out kissing scenes during filming during the pandemic, which forced them to explore unique approaches. Colette Mann, who plays Sheila Canning, revealed one particular way they faked a lot of kisses: Each actor kissed a mirror. Then the visual effects team did the rest, making it look like the characters were actually kissing.