by When іt сomeѕ to Hollywood beѕtіeѕ, there аre ѕo mаny greаt duoѕ. Stаrѕ lіke Nісole Kіdmаn аnd Nаomі Wаttѕ, Ben Affleсk аnd Mаtt Dаmon, Cаmeron Dіаz аnd Drew Bаrrymore, Tаylor Swіft аnd Selenа Gomez, Oрrаh Wіnfrey аnd Gаyle Kіng, аnd Courteney Cox аnd Jennіfer Anіѕton hаve аll been eасh other’ѕ сloѕeѕt frіendѕ over the yeаrѕ. Of сourѕe, when сomріlіng а lіѕt of the beѕt сelebrіty buddіeѕ, you саn’t forget Jennіfer Loрez аnd Leаh Remіnі, who hаve been frіendѕ for mаny yeаrѕ.
Loрez аnd Remіnі were іntroduсed through Mаrс Anthony. In 2018, Remіnі reveаled thаt Anthony brought the two women together аfter he begаn dаtіng Loрez (vіа Entertаіnment Tonіght). Eventuаlly, the duo even worked together аnd рortrаyed beѕt frіendѕ іn the movіe “Seсond Aсt.” “Mаyа аnd Joаn’ѕ relаtіonѕhір wаѕ ѕo muсh lіke my аnd Leаh’ѕ relаtіonѕhір,” Loрez ѕаіd of the fіlm’ѕ сhаrасterѕ durіng аn іntervіew wіth Andy Cohen on “Wаtсh Whаt Hаррenѕ Lіve,” рer Uѕ Weekly.
“So we begged her to do іt. We were lіke, ‘If ѕhe doeѕ іt, I know thаt іt would be ѕomethіng ѕрeсіаl.’ Beсаuѕe the relаtіonѕhір thаt Mаyа аnd Joаn hаve іѕ very ѕрeсіаl, аnd the relаtіonѕhір thаt we hаve іѕ very ѕрeсіаl,” ѕhe аdded. “I knew thаt іf we сould сарture our reаl honeѕty, our reаl love, our reаl humor, then thаt would be ѕomethіng reаlly entertаіnіng аnd fun for everybody to ѕee,” ѕhe аdded.
Jennіfer Loрez аnd Leаh Remіnі underѕtаnd eасh other’ѕ lіveѕ
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Durіng аn аррeаrаnсe on “The Vіew,” Jennіfer Loрez аnd Leаh Remіnі oрened uр аbout the ѕtrong bond of frіendѕhір thаt they hаve, сomраrіng іt to а ѕіѕterhood of ѕortѕ. “We’re very сloѕe lіke ѕіѕterѕ аre, but іn а dіfferent wаy thаt ѕіѕterѕ аre,” Remіnі ѕаіd. Loрez аgreed, аddіng, “We underѕtаnd eасh other’ѕ lіveѕ. We hаve ѕіmіlаr lіveѕ, аnd ѕіmіlаr саreerѕ, аnd we underѕtаnd nuаnсeѕ thаt other рeoрle don’t underѕtаnd, ѕo thаt аlѕo bonded uѕ.”
Of сourѕe, аѕ motherѕ, the асtorѕ hаve аlѕo enѕured thаt theіr fаmіlіeѕ get іn on the fun аѕ well. Aссordіng to Peoрle Mаgаzіne, Loрez аnd Remіnі’ѕ сhіldren аre сloѕe frіendѕ аnd the “Kіng of Queenѕ” ѕtаr even рublісly reveаled ѕhe wаnted to be сonѕіdered for the role of godmother to the ѕіnger’ѕ twіnѕ Mаx аnd Emme, whom ѕhe ѕhаreѕ wіth Mаrс Anthony.
In аddіtіon to theіr roleѕ аѕ motherѕ аnd entertаіnerѕ, Loрez аnd Remіnі аlѕo ѕhаre а love of сookіng, whісh they’ve doсumented on ѕoсіаl medіа. However, durіng theіr іntervіew on “Wаtсh Whаt Hаррenѕ Lіve,” Loрez аdmіtted thаt Remіnі’ѕ lаѕаgnа tendѕ to be too ѕаlty for her аt tіmeѕ. Meаnwhіle, Remіnі ѕаyѕ thаt Loрez’ѕ reсірeѕ аre аlwаyѕ ѕtellаr.
Leаh Remіnі doeѕn’t lіke beіng аѕked аbout Jennіfer Loрez’ рerѕonаl lіfe
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In 2022, rumorѕ begаn to сіrсulаte thаt Leаh Remіnі аnd Jennіfer Loрez mаy not be аѕ сloѕe аѕ they onсe were. The ѕрeсulаtіon ѕurfасed аfter іt wаѕ reveаled thаt Remіnі dіdn’t аttend Loрez’ѕ weddіng to Ben Affleсk іn Georgіа. However, TMZ reveаled thаt there wаѕ no frіendѕhір rіft between the beѕtіeѕ. Inѕteаd, Remіnі wаѕ ѕіmрly buѕy ѕрendіng tіme wіth her dаughter Sofіа аnd helріng her get reаdy to move to сollege. An іnѕіder told the outlet thаt Remіnі wаѕ іnvіted to the nuрtіаlѕ but сhoѕe to ѕрend thаt tіme wіth her fаmіly іnѕteаd.
Meаnwhіle, Remіnі dіd ѕрeаk out аbout Loрez’ѕ weddіng, reveаlіng thаt ѕhe doeѕn’t lіke to be аѕked аbout her раl’ѕ рerѕonаl lіfe. “Not beсаuѕe I don’t love tаlkіng аbout my frіend, but I feel а lot of tіmeѕ іt’ѕ for goѕѕір рurрoѕeѕ,” the “Sаved By The Bell” аlum exрlаіned durіng аn іntervіew wіth “Todаy.” “Eѕрeсіаlly іf I аm tryіng to tаlk аbout ѕomethіng thаt іѕ іmрortаnt, lіke our рodсаѕt, or exрoѕіng the аbuѕeѕ thаt we’re tаlkіng аbout іn Sсіentology аnd the vісtіmѕ of Sсіentology аnd ѕomebody аѕkѕ me аbout Jennіfer’ѕ weddіng. I juѕt fіnd іt utterly аnnoyіng.”
It ѕeemѕ thаt Remіnі аnd Loрez hаve buіlt а ѕolіd frіendѕhір over the yeаrѕ, аnd they won’t let Hollywood сome between them.
d to their kissing scenes.
“He tells you upfront certain ways of kissing he does not want,” Carter said, as reported by Elle. “No exchange of liquid is permitted. It can be a bit offensive because he makes no effort at all. It’s like kissing the Berlin Wall,” she continued. That’s kind of awkward, especially if you are trying to convey that two characters have chemistry. But also, how can you lock lips without exchanging even just a smidge of saliva? It’s truly confusing, but apparently Allen lives in his own spit-free world.
Reese Witherspoon wasn’t pleased about kissing co-star Robert Pattinson
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The 2011 dramatic romance movie Water For Elephants was definitely a smash hit, and with a star-studded cast including Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson, that’s not exactly surprising. Still, though the duo acted their butts off and the movie received pretty decent reviews, one of the most common critiques posed about the film was that the two lacked a spark. And as it turns out, Witherspoon and Patterson were both aware of that.
In fact, in an interview with MTV News, Witherspoon explained how she was really dreading kissing co-star Pattinson, as he had a nasty cold at the time. “He did have a very runny nose, yeah,” she began. “It wasn’t appealing; it wasn’t pleasant.” But Pattinson also told MTV News that he himself wasn’t even looking forward to the kiss because of how gross he felt. “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,” he said. Nothing like a runny nose and boogers in your hair to really get the spark going.
Liam Hemsworth had a good reason for despising kissing co-star Jennifer Lawrence
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If there was one young adult dystopian series that truly captivated the world, it was The Hunger Games. There was romance, action, cruel dictators, and one love triangle that really got people passionate about whether they were #TeamGale or #TeamPeeta. But no matter what side you fell on, when Liam Hemsworth as Gale locked lips with co-star Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, the sparks were real.
But, according to Hemsworth, any time he had to lock lips with Lawrence, he was pretty miserable. “Anytime I had to kiss Jennifer was pretty uncomfortable,” he said in an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “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,” Hemsworth added that Lawrence would even taunt him with her meal choices. “Right before the scene, she’d be like, ‘Yeah, I had 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!'” Hemsworth laughed. As funny as that is, it must have made kissing pretty disgusting.
Apparently co-stars Thandie Newton and Tom Cruise had no chemistry for their kiss
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Despite his connections to Scientology and his sketchy relationship past, Tom Cruise continues to be one of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs. And all his action-packed movies don’t do anything to make him less sexy. For instance, in Mission: Impossible 2, Cruise and co-star Thandie Newton shared some spicy moments. But according to Newton, it was all for show. Moreover, she kind of hated having to kiss Cruise, and she’s said as much.
According to the book, Holy Matrimony!: Better Halves and Bitter Halves by Boze Hadleigh, Newton described her kiss with Cruise as, “Slightly icky and a little bit wet.” Um, gross. That sounds like your first kiss in your middle school best friend’s basement during a game of spin the bottle, not what you’d imagine kissing a movie star to be like. Additionally, she explained that it was one of the worst parts of filming. “I’d really go home at the end of the day actually moaning about…how many times we had to do it,” she said, per Just Jared. Cruise might be an action hero, but a good kisser that does not make. At least if Newton’s to be believed.
Hugh Jackman felt the pressure kissing co-star Nicole Kidman
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Before he was Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Hugh Jackman starred in a highly romantic film alongside Nicole Kidman, Australia. The two played lovers and their scenes were pretty steamy. Of course, both actors were already married when the 2008 movie was filming, but that doesn’t mean the kissing scenes were any easier.
Jackman actually stated that it was pretty awkward, and he didn’t look forward to kissing his co-star. “It’s never particularly comfortable making out with someone in front of 70 people,” Jackman said of kissing Kidman, as reported by Elle. “That’s really not something that turns me on.”
Additionally, Jackman told Express that his own wife — Deborra-Lee Furness, who used to live with Kidman and remains close friends with her — wasn’t even comfortable watching them. “Needless to say Deb wasn’t on set when we had our kissing scenes,” he explained. “That would have been awkward, but we talked about it. I said, ‘Let’s talk about it,’ and we just sort of, we both loved the project and created an atmosphere which was safe.” As comfortable as that environment might have been, it’s clear Jackman didn’t exactly enjoy kissing Kidman.
Jennifer Lawrence didn’t have the nicest things to say about kissing co-star Bradley Cooper
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The 2012 film Silver Linings Playbook starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper was certainly intense. Based on the book of the same name, the movie followed Cooper’s character, Pat, as he struggles with mental illness and meets Lawrence’s Tiffany, who is facing a similar struggle, and the two enter a dance contest together. It’s sweet, endearing, and heartbreaking all at once, and the on-screen spark between Lawrence and Cooper was undeniable.
However, spark or not, Lawrence wasn’t all that psyched to kiss her co-star on set, and the reason why is kind of gross. During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Cooper revealed that Lawrence actually told him just how much she didn’t enjoy kissing him. “After the second take she [Lawrence] said, ‘You’re a wet kisser.’ You don’t want to hear that. It was not a compliment,” Cooper said (via Daily Mail). Cooper is right; that’s definitely not what you want to hear after locking lips with someone. But hey, their kissing still made for a great movie!
Josh Hutcherson had an audience for his first kiss ever
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Most people will think of The Hunger Games when they think of Josh Hutcherson. And while Hutcherson definitely did a great job in his role as Peta, one of his breakout roles was in Little Manhattan, and he played an adorable kid in love. The movie was innocent and super cute. But, at one point, Hutcherson had to kiss his co-star Charlotte Ray Rosenberg, and it was something he really dreaded.
Why did he dread it? Well, it turns out that it was Hutcherson’s first kiss. He was only 11 when the movie was filmed, so that makes sense. But because of all that pressure, he was seriously shocked. “I was filming in New York City and my mom surprised me by flying my dad in for the kiss scene for support,” he told Seventeen. “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.” Yep. Having your first kiss be filmed with dozens of people watching honestly sounds like a nightmare.
Kirsten Dunst thought kissing co-star Brad Pitt was disgusting
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Let’s be real, no matter how old he gets or whether or not he’s single, Brad Pitt continues to be one of the hunkiest dreamboats in the film industry. Back in 1994, Pitt starred in the movie Interview with the Vampire, and one of his on-screen kisses was with a young Kirsten Dunst. While Dunst was only a pre-teen at the time, she couldn’t stand having to kiss her co-star.
“It was just a peck,” Dunst told Bullet magazine (via E! News). “I remember Brad would watch lots of Real World episodes. He had this long hair. He was just a hippie-ish cool dude. Everyone at the time was like, ‘You’re so lucky you kissed Brad Pitt,’ but I thought it was disgusting.” She added, “I didn’t kiss anyone else until I was 16, I think. I was a late bloomer.” That’s right, kissing Pitt practically scarred Dunst for over five years after the movie, and it’s pretty understandable. Basically, every intimate interaction is gross when you’re that young, and Dunst had to kiss an older guy in front of a bunch of other people, which couldn’t have been easy.
Co-stars Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller hated kissing each other
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Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller are both attractive, talented actors. But when they got together for one movie and had to kiss, it was anything but nice. On the set of The Spectacular Now, it seems as though both Woodley and Teller weren’t crazy about having to lock lips, and their reasons are pretty hilarious.
Specifically, they both complained that the other had just eaten something gross and they could then taste it when they kissed. “She would take these herbal supplements, these Chinese herbal supplements, and they tasted like crap. And she would always eat them right before we had a kissing scene!” Teller told Vulture of kissing his co-star. He went on to explain that she hated his pre-kiss beverage, too. “I would be drinking a Gatorade right before a kissing scene,” he continued. “She would be like, ‘Are you serious? You’re gonna kiss me after that?'”
Woodley confirmed to Vulture that she wasn’t a fan of Teller’s kissing and vice versa. “It was just this ongoing back-and-forth,” she said. Clearly, the two would never date in real life, but at least they looked good in the movie.
Ashley Tisdale’s kiss with co-star Zac Efron was so uncomfortable
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The Disney Channel isn’t exactly known for being risky with its shows or plotlines. Sure, there might be kissing, but it’s usually a peck or a light kiss between the adults on the series. However, in one episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Zac Efron guest-starred, and he and Ashley Tisdale shared a smooch that she really wasn’t looking forward to.
In an interview with Elle, Tisdale was asked who her worst on-screen kiss was, and she didn’t hold back. “It’s the worst because I’m so close to him and he’s like my brother,” she said. “At the time, he was used to acting on like Warner Brothers, which is CW, and we were on Disney Channel,” Tisdale continued. “And so… he tried kissing me with his tongue, and I was like, ‘Get away from me!'” Recalling having to kiss her co-star, she continued, “I just closed my mouth so fast. I was like, ‘This is Disney Channel. We don’t kiss like that on Disney Channel.'” Tisdale concluded that it just felt strange because of their friendship, which is totally understandable.
How Morena Baccarin really felt about kissing co-star Ryan Reynolds
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To many, Blake Lively is the luckiest woman in the world to be married to Ryan Reynolds (and he’s pretty lucky too, to be honest). But in Deadpool, in which Reynolds stars alongside his on-screen love interest Morena Baccarin, the romance wasn’t exactly palpable. And for Baccarin, kissing her co-star was usually the last thing she wanted to do.
“I keep saying that kissing him in that mask is like kissing a giant latex condom,” Baccarin told People. “It basically just smells like rubber the entire time.” Baccarin added that it was also just hard to feel intimate with him in costume. “And then when it was just him…I just felt like I could actually see his eyes. So it’s a little challenging to act with the mask, essentially.” Kissing a giant thing of latex certainly isn’t the most appealing thing in the world, and, despite Deadpool’s humorous nature, those kiss scenes were still awkward to film.
Jennifer Lawrence felt guilty for kissing Passengers co-star Chris Pratt
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Action or sci-fi movies don’t typically scream romance, but, in some films, things can get pretty steamy. In Passengers, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt shared some hot moments, but for Lawrence, it was torture to have to film them.
In fact, Lawrence recalled her first-ever intimate scene with Pratt in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and she said it was an awful experience to have to get it on with her co-star. Specifically, Lawrence had an issue with kissing a married man. “It was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach,” she said. “And I knew it was my job, but I couldn’t tell my stomach that.” Lawrence’s guilt is pretty commendable, and the star also added that filming with Pratt “was the most vulnerable [she’d] ever been.” Still, fortunately for viewers, their intimate scenes turned out great.
ENTERTAINMENT
Actors Who Refused To Do Kissing Scenes
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BY BRITTANY BROLLEY/UPDATED: DEC. 21, 2020 2:49 PM EST
It’s hard to picture your favorite shows or romcoms without any onscreen lip-locking. According to The New York Times, smooching on the big screen for the world to see got its start early on when the movie industry began. In a 25-second short film by none other than Thomas Edison in 1896, audiences witnessed the very first onscreen kiss. It was awkward, as most first kisses are, but started a trend that’s still prevalent today. Thankfully, Hollywood these days has made sure the scenes aren’t uncomfortable to watch.
Kissing scenes may very well be commonplace in the 21st century, but that doesn’t mean actors feel all that comfortable doing them. Some stars, like Selena Gomez and Dakota Fanning, experienced their first ever kisses while on camera. As you can imagine, these young pros were nervous, but remained committed to their craft — even if that craft meant swapping spit. Sometimes, though, actors have flat-out refused to do a kissing scene with a costar. Here are some surprising celebs who just wouldn’t purse those lips.
Kirk Cameron saves the smooches for his spouse
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In the 2008 film Fireproof, actor Kirk Cameron was slated to share an onscreen kiss with the actress who was playing the role of his wife — but Cameron wouldn’t do it. Although the kiss — and the film itself — was very PG, Cameron revealed in an interview with Today why he refused to lock lips with his costar. “I have a commitment not to kiss any other woman,” the evangelical Christian actor stated.
But, wait. If you’ve watched Fireproof, then you know Cameron does kiss his onscreen wife. While it may seem like the Growing Pains actor had a change of heart, it was actually some fancy footwork on the part of the filmmakers. Cameron’s wife, actress Chelsea Noble, stepped in for the kissing scene. Since it was shot in silhouette and Noble was dressed the same as Cameron’s female costar, no one was the wiser. “So when I’m kissing my wife, we’re actually husband and wife honoring marriage behind the scenes,” Cameron dished.
Janet Jackson’s kissing conditions
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If you saw the 1993 film Poetic Justice, you know that Janet Jackson and her costar Q-Tip share a kissing scene. Although the scene had to be shot around 11 times, Q-Tip told Revolt it was enjoyable to film. Tupac Shakur was also cast to play opposite Jackson as her character’s love interest. Although the two were required to share a kissing scene, Jackson made it clear that she would not be kissing Shakur unless he got a blood test.
“I don’t know what that decision was on her part to be like, ‘He has to get a AIDS test,'” Q-Tip explained. “But she was definitely, ‘Well, if I’m going to kiss with him, he definitely has to.'” Although Q-Tip revealed that the late hip-hop phenom was miffed by Jackson’s ultimatum, it seems he did subject himself to a test as the make-out sesh made it into the film.
Lindsay Lohan would rather use a body double
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According to TMZ, Lindsay Lohan once refused to kiss Charlie Sheen. Citing sources close to the actress, the publication said she wouldn’t kiss the actor based on his “spotty history.” If true, Lohan was supposed to share three onscreen kisses with Sheen for Scary Movie 5. Instead, TMZ revealed that the costars used a body double for some scenes, while changing the script to write out the rest of the smooches.
Although neither actor has spoken publicly about the matter, Lohan and Sheen did work together again for Sheen’s short-lived show Anger Management in 2013 and it seems Lohan had a change of heart when it came to smooching her costar. The two actually share a kiss in one episode (and there doesn’t appear to be a body double). In a radio interview with KIIS 1065, Sheen said he invited the actress over to his house after they finished filming. “Either I outdrank her, or she outdrank me, and all I know is, she tucked me into bed and said, ‘Sleep well, sweet prince.” The interaction was strange, yes, but Sheen claimed nothing happened between the two.
Neal McDonough is all about killing, not kissing
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Although Neal McDonough has starred in notable films like Minority Report and Captain America: The First Avenger among others, you’ll never, ever see him kiss a costar on screen. “Life is about honoring God and being the best human being you can be and giving praise to God in everything you do,” the devout catholic actor revealed to Christian Examiner. While he says “killing people on screen” is “fake,” he opined, “when you’re in bed with another woman on screen — guess what? That’s real. I don’t like that kind of stuff.”
As a husband and father of five, he says he doesn’t want his kids to question his onscreen actions, at least when it comes to kissing and “[using] the Lord’s name in vain” — both of which he is adamantly against. Violence, however, is another matter. McDonough revealed that there’s really only two roles to choose from in Hollywood: the leading man who kisses girls or the bad guy who kills people. He admits he’s chosen the latter, but hopes to see more faith-based films in the future.
Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev will never do this again
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After Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev shared a steamy kiss in the rain as Damon and Elena on The Vampire Diaries, fans were left wanting more rainy smooches from the stars — but both Somerhalder and Dobrev refused.
“First of all, it’s really cold in Georgia, so I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Somerhalder said at the PaleyFest panel for The Vampire Diaries (via United Press International). The actor revealed that it was below 30 degrees at the time, causing his jaw muscles to freeze up. Dobrev revealed that she had icicles in her hair at the time and later became ill. “You write another rain kiss and I quit,” Ian joked to the series’ co-executive producer Julie Plec.
Although fans didn’t get another drenched Damon and Elena kiss, Somerhalder starred in an epic recreation of the kiss in a video shared at Comic-Con in 2015. Only, instead of kissing Dobrev, Somerhalder locked lips with costar Chris Wood.
Tisha Campbell requested to stop doing love scenes
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Although audiences fell in love with onscreen couple Martin and Gina in the ’90s television series Martin, what was happening behind the scenes was a different matter altogether. Los Angeles Times reported that court documents filed by Tisha Campbell, the actress who played Gina, accused her onscreen husband, Martin Lawrence, of humiliating and abusing Campbell to “the point where she needed to be hospitalized due to the stress he caused her.”
Campbell alleged that Lawrence would also forcefully kiss her when they were not in rehearsal or filming. By the show’s fifth season, she went to the writers petitioning them to cease writing any romantic bedroom scenes. After the writers continued to write the love scenes, and after another one of Martin’s “hysterical outburst[s]”, the actress informed the show’s producers that she was done and not coming back.
Lawrence and Campbell appear to have reconciled since and, in 2018, Campbell was even photographed giving Lawrence a kiss on the cheek.
Denzel Washington didn’t want to cause offense
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Although Denzel Washington has kissed plenty of times on screen, things were different during the 1993 film The Pelican Brief. Julia Roberts revealed that she wanted Washington to be the leading man. “I had suggested him from the beginning, and he did amazing things with a character that didn’t look like much on paper,” she is quoted as saying in Newsweek. However, the star also admitted that she has “taken so much s*** over the years about not kissing Denzel in that film.”
As it turns out, though, it wasn’t her decision. “Don’t I have a pulse? Of course I wanted to kiss Denzel,” she revealed. “It was his idea to take the damn scenes out.” Washington said he feared the audience’s reactions to the kiss, which is why it didn’t happen. During a test screening of The Mighty Quinn in 1989, a similar scene — a kiss with Mimi Rogers — elicited disapproving boos from the black female viewers and he didn’t want to cause offense a second time.
Candace Cameron Bure is so over onscreen kissing
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Although Candace Cameron Bure hasn’t refused to kiss her costars yet, it seems likely that she will secure a spot on the short list of celebs who’ve stopped doing kissing scenes. In 2017, the actress told Us Weekly that she doesn’t like that her character is involved in a love triangle in Netflix’s Fuller House. The star revealed, saying, “…I’m kind of over it in the sense that I don’t like that I keep kissing two different men!”
Because Bure also stars in Hallmark movies, she said she has to work with — and kiss — “a new guy in each movie.” The actresses continued, saying, “I’m getting more uncomfortable with it the older I’m getting. I’m like, ‘I don’t want to keep doing this!'” Bure’s husband isn’t a fan of the smooching aspect of her job either and has decided to stop watching her work altogether. And, given that Bure’s brother Kirk Cameron has taken a stand against onscreen kissing, it isn’t too hard to picture Bure doing the same.
ENTERTAINMENT
The Best First Kisses In Movie History
BY AMANDA BELL/UPDATED: JULY 30, 2020 2:48 PM EST
The quality of a movie kiss can make or break a film. A good cinematic kiss can transport the audience right into the heart of a budding romance and help viewers care about the characters’ connection, but a sloppy screen smooch can sabotage the whole theatrical experience and render a supposed love story unwatchable. Luckily, there are a few films that fans can always turn to when the need for gooey, emotional goodness strikes — because they contain some of the best first kiss scenes to ever hit the big screen.
Even the most perfect first kiss scenes in movies have a story behind them, though. From kissing cast members whose real-life relationships were purely platonic, to unexpected difficulties capturing the big moment on camera, to on-set encounters that were just plain awkward for everyone involved, here’s a look at the true story behind some of cinema’s most iconic first kiss scenes.
Titanic (1997)
First kiss scenes don’t get much more iconic than Jack and Rose’s sunset smooch on the bow of the R.M.S. Titanic. The picture perfection of the Titanic scene was largely a result of the magnificent sunset that the characters were bathed in, which was a complete stroke of luck for the filmmakers, who had to rush to capture the “I’m flying” scene before the sun would set. However, credit is due to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet for committing to the romance of the moment, despite the fact that off-screen, they were anything but lovers. In fact, DiCaprio spent much of his time on the set trying to gross his co-star out.
Winslet would later remember, “We shot that scene… about four times, and to be honest with you, by the end of it, we were just like ‘Ugh, we can’t kiss each other anymore.’ It just got so boring, and I had his makeup on me, and he had my makeup on him.” In other words, as swoon-worthy as the scene is on-screen, it was just another grueling day at work for the stars involved.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Any movie expert worth his or her salt will cite the scene when Leia declares her love for Han Solo, and gets a simple “I know” in return, as the most iconic romantic scene between the characters, but their first kiss aboard the Millennium Falcon was a major moment as well. There are some who now take issue with the space pirate’s clear aggression in the scene, but the behind-the-scenes gossip surrounding Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher during production might shed some light on the palpable tension between the characters.
According to Fisher’s final autobiography, The Princess Diarist, the two had engaged in an affair during production on the films, so they were well-prepared to lock lips during that day of shooting. She wrote, “He took my arm and drew me into the back of a taxi, moving us closer and closer until we were two faces, four eyes, one kiss, going to the place where we could rehearse that kissing we would be doing a year and a half later in The Empire Strikes Back. These were the early days and nights of the Force.” As they say, practice makes perfect.
Spider-Man (2002)
We’ve seen plenty of superheroes kiss their leading ladies, but never quite like what happens in Spider-Man. After rescuing Mary Jane from a group of would-be muggers, Spider-Man hangs upside-down in the dripping rain and lets her unmask him just enough to plant one on him in thanks. Little does she know this is Peter Parker in disguise — he’s been carrying a torch for her forever, so for him, it’s a dream come true.
For Tobey Maguire, however, the moment wasn’t nearly as lovey-dovey as it looked. He told the BBC that, while co-star Kirsten Dunst did most of the screen work in the shot, he was suffering in silence. “Because of all the water pouring down I couldn’t breathe,” he remembered. “The rain was pouring up my nose. Then she was kissing me and I couldn’t breathe out of my mouth! So, I had to hold my breath while I was kissing her. I would sneak little breaths out of the corner of my mouth.” Who knew a kissing scene could be the riskiest bit of an action movie?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
Nothing says “let’s make out” quite like… destroying horcruxes? In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Hermione and Ron finally decided to take their friendship to the next level after years of hiding their affection for one another — even from themselves. Once they defy the odds by effectively destroying Helga Hufflepuff’s cup in the Chamber of Secrets, though, a wave literally washes over them and they decide to finally go there with a kiss.
For Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who’d been working together since childhood, it was simply awkward. As Watson described to MTV News, “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!’ 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!'” Luckily for everyone, that desperation seemed to have a different meaning from the audience’s perspective, so all’s well that ends well.
Twilight (2008)
Rarely are screen couples’ first kisses this reserved. In Twilight, vampire Edward has to be extraordinarily restrained when kissing Bella because his bone-crushing bloodlust could do a lot of damage to this tiny human girl if he’s not careful. So, the two take it maddeningly slow before Edward leaps away from the bed. And while it seems like all of this is purposeful for the narrative, Robert Pattinson has hinted he wasn’t happy with how things turned out.
He told MTV News that it’s the one scene he would re-do if he could because, even though it was also the audition scene with Kristen Stewart that would earn him the role, he had trouble pinning down exactly when to pull away. “That was a hard scene,” he remembered. “I was always kind of preempting — the pull back — so I’m not sort of leaping away correctly.” Twilight fans might beg to differ, of course, because it was a good precursor for a whole Saga of hesitation to follow. But it looks like the actors involved don’t particularly relish revisiting this moment, even though it may have help make their screen careers.
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
When it comes to stellar adaptations of William Shakespeare’s tragic romance, Baz Luhrmann’s modernized take with Romeo + Juliet is not to be missed. The film helped jettison Leonardo DiCaprio into true heartthrob status, thanks to his dreamy depiction of the title hero, and Claire Danes became a household name thanks to her blissed-out leading lady routine.
The young lovers steal a forbidden kiss just inches away from being caught in the act — it’s all so torrid and innocent at the same time. Put simply, the two share some kiss chemistry that simply could not be feigned. Or could it?
Not only was the set of the film riddled with problems, including rampant illnesses suffered by the cast and crew, but when they first began filming this scene, per Entertainment Weekly, they encountered numerous unexpected hurdles. First Danes accidentally broke off a piece of the set. Then, Luhrmann told the young actors to leap into their first kiss with passion, so they took the advice a little too seriously — crashing heads and exploding into giggle fits. It apparently took around two dozen takes to get it right — and each one required the prodding from Luhrmann to get the two friends to stop thumb-wrestling and start kissing.
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Cartoon dogs can have serious schmaltz, too! Disney’s classic pooch pic Lady and the Tramp certainly features one of the more memorable cinematic kisses of all time, when the title canines share some spaghetti outside of the Italian restaurant and find themselves at either end of the same noodle. Lady bashfully turns away after their lips touch, embarrassed, but the Tramp nose-nudges the last meatball to her just as the cooks’ rendition of “Belle Notte” starts to soften, and it’s all just so sweet and tender and classic.
Believe it or not, the scene almost didn’t make the cut. Per Yahoo Movies, Disney archivist Steven Vagnini revealed, “Walt [Disney] wasn’t convinced that that would be a very clean-cut scene. As you can imagine, if you have two pets and they eat a plate of spaghetti, it’s hard to envision that being too graceful.” Luckily, animator Frank Thomas changed his mind by rendering a mock-up of what the scene might look like, and the rest is movie history.
Sixteen Candles (1984)
It takes an entire movie for poor Samantha to finally get an ounce of enjoyment out of her sixteenth birthday, thanks to her inattentive family and the fracas surrounding her sister’s wedding. By the end of Sixteen Candles, which features many social problems that one might notice upon modern review of the film, though, her biggest wish comes true. She ends up sharing a kiss with her high school’s resident dreamboat, Jake Ryan.
Actor Michael Schoeffling almost didn’t get the leading man role, however, and, if it were up to Molly Ringwald, he wouldn’t have… and the final kiss would’ve been a lot steamier. She revealed to Entertainment Weekly (via Yahoo) that she was originally rooting for Viggo Mortensen to win the role after he made her “weak in the knees” during their kiss in the audition process. But Mortensen kissing Ringwald during the audition may have been what cost him the role, considering that Schoeffling didn’t kiss the actress during his audition. Bummer.
At least the two later co-starred in a film called Fresh Horses.
Love Actually (2003)
Few romantic dramedies have as lasting an impact as Love Actually, and when it comes to the movie’s most meme-able scene, the unrequited love profession by Mark to Juliet has to take the cake. After an untold amount of time spent pining for his best friend’s wife, Mark finally musters the courage to confess his feelings to her by showing up at her doorstep with a series of posters that reads, in part, “To me, you are perfect.” Although it seems like less of a last-ditch effort to win her over and more of a desperate decision to just get it out of his system already, it does pay off with a kiss. A pity kiss, of course, but a kiss nonetheless.
Even Andrew Lincoln looks back on the ultra-memorable screen kiss with disdain, however, as he viewed his own character to be more of a scoundrel than a hopeless romantic. He even asked writer-director Richard Curtis, “Do you not think we’re sort of borderline stalker territory here?” Even if it wasn’t the most desirable way for a real-life guy to declare his love, it sure did make for one unforgettable movie moment.
A Walk to Remember (2002)
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No matter how many times we watch A Walk to Remember, it will repeatedly break our hearts. The movie was also Mandy Moore’s big break into acting. When she starred in the now-famous love story, she was only 17 years old, and one of the first scenes she had to shoot involved some onscreen smooching with co-star Shane West. Moore, unfortunately, found it extremely awkward, no matter how adorable it was to the rest of us. “You have to kiss this person that you don’t know very well and you don’t even have a friendship with yet,” she explained to Entertainment Tonight. Hey, that’s why they call it acting!
On the other hand, West’s side of the story was this: “You got all these lights blaring off of your eyes and you actually do see fireworks.” Needless to say, it seemed a bit simpler for him to jump right into the kissing scenes. A Walk to Remember gave them both quite a kiss to remember too.
A Cinderella Story (2004)
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Waiting for Hilary Duff to kiss heartthrob Chad Michael Murray at the end of A Cinderella Story was like waiting for rain in a drought. These actors, on the other hand, had to wait only three days to film their famous first kiss up in the bleachers. “Out of those three days, I’d only worked with Chad one day,” Duff explained to People, so she wasn’t feeling super prepared for the iconic scene.
To make it less awkward in front of quite a big camera crew, Duff revealed that the two actually practiced locking lips in a trailer before the big moment. “It was much better than my real first kiss,” she added, which makes our teen selves ten times more jealous. “But like, probably way more awkward because there were 270 people watching,” she admitted. Maybe it wasn’t the Cinderella story we’ve all dreamt of after all.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
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There may be 10 things that Julia Stiles’ character, Kat, hates about bad boy Patrick in 10 Things I Hate About You, but there is one thing she does like. When asked by Cosmopolitan who the best kisser in the business is, Stiles’ response was the man who played Patrick — Heath Ledger.
Their iconic first kiss in the film, which takes place in a pretty unexpected place and looks like the most fun date ever, left more than just paintballs flying. Sparks seemed to fly too as soon as Stiles’ character, Kat, realizes that there may just be more love than hate involved when it comes to her feelings for him. “It was actually my first on screen kiss,” Stiles admitted, and it was the feature role that ended up catapulting her career.
It happened to be the same situation when it came to Ledger’s fame. “It wasn’t until the movie came out that that momentum kind of built,” Stiles explained to News.com.au. Their careers became quite legendary after locking lips.
My Girl (1991)
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Girls are gross when you’re just a kid, so when young Macaulay Culkin had to kiss one in the movie My Girl, he was less than impressed. “We got along very well,” he explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show of his young co-star Anna Chlumsky, who was 10 years old at the time, “but at the same time, it was also, like, this is so embarrassing.”
While the two kid characters are pretty curious in the film when it comes to kissing, there was a completely different story behind the scenes. The two adorable little stars made a pretty cute onscreen couple to audiences everywhere, but it turns out that young Chlumsky felt the exact same way as her co-star. Her response to her their first onscreen kiss was simply “yuck,” as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
Notably, the scene is what helped Culkin break away from only being known from Home Alone and set him on a path to stardom, and it all started with a simple but adorable kiss as a kid. Yuck.
The Greatest Showman (2017)
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Zac Efron has been a part of countless kisses on screen, and in 2017, he got the opportunity to snatch a smooch from actress Zendaya in The Greatest Showman. He later revealed it was his favorite on-screen kiss he’d ever been a part of. “I’m lucky. I’m pretty lucky,” he admitted to Filmweb of his on-screen kissing resume.
However, Zendaya, on the other hand, felt like she needed to clarify for fans. “I think everybody’s getting locked into the physical of a kiss, but that’s not really what we’re talking about,” she explained to E! News when asked about the rumored romance between the two stars. “We try to take ourselves out of it and become these two characters,” she told Filmweb. Their characters, who fight for a forbidden love, keep viewers on the edge of their seats waiting for that first kiss, which continues to build up over the course of the movie.
ENTERTAINMENT
Underappreciated Romantic Comedies You Need To See
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BY MARY MADORMO/UPDATED: MARCH 30, 2018 11:19 AM EST
When Harry Met Sally. Pretty Woman. My Best Friend’s Wedding. What do these movies have in common? Well, first off, these are all solid films. But they are also pretty well-known romantic comedies. They’re classics you’ve probably seen multiple times, and if not, you have a decent idea of the plot line. Sometimes we just need a good, new romantic comedy. There may not be many in theaters at any given time, but there are quite a few movies that were released under the radar that you might not have had a chance to watch. Get your TV ready, grab some popcorn, and check out some of the best romantic comedy movies you’ve never seen.
Penelope (2006)
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Penelope tells the story of a girl of that very same name from a high society family who is looking for a suitor for her happily ever after. Well, actually her mother is the one who wants her to find a suitor. And Penelope is cursed. And has a pig snout. Have we lost you yet? A strange premise, but Penelope is a whimsical romantic comedy that sweeps you up into the magic of the story. The cast includes Christina Ricci, who plays the lead role of Penelope, along with James McAvoy and Peter Dinklage. With such big names, it seems odd that the movie fell under the radar, but it came out in 2006, before Dinklage’s now well-known role of Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones, and McAvoy’s film Atonement had just come out. Another big name in this movie? One of our favorite rom-com ladies, Reese Witherspoon.
Fun fact: Penelope was the first movie from Witherspoon’s production company, Type A. In addition, she plays a supporting character in the movie. And it’s not like the Witherspoon we’ve seen before. Speaking with Seventeen, she described her character, saying, “I got to run around the streets of London on that Vespa [motorbike] and got to wear the funny hair, and just be ballsy and funny.” Any involvement from Witherspoon, and we’re in. The film is feel-good and good for you. Not only does it have romance, but it offers a great message of self-love, too. Witherspoon addressed the topic, explaining, “There’s all sorts of different definitions of beauty and that it’s about finding what makes you unique. It’s important to really know yourself.”
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
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A movie about a governess and a singer in the 1930s, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day tells a tangled tale about a famous singer named Delysia who needs a social secretary and ends up with a nanny, played by Frances McDormand. McDormand’s character, Miss Pettigrew, gets in way over her head and caught up in the hectic life of Delysia, played by the always-fabulous Amy Adams. Delysia is juggling three men and depends on Miss Pettigrew’s help to sort out her crazy, high society-filled life. The film has the same screwball comedy humor found in movies from the 1930s and 1940s, and Adams and McDormand are pros that fit perfectly together. Time Out London reviewed the two actresses, saying, “Adams is adorable as the wide-eyed would-be starlet, with McDormand spot-on as the sensible half of the odd couple.” And if you want even more Miss Pettigrew, start out with the book, written by Winifred Watson, then dive in and watch the movie. Romantic and hilarious, this film truly fits the rom-com genre.
Mr. Right (2015)
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Martha is a girl who goes through a breakup when she finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her. Low and behold, the next day she runs into Francis, a guy she has an immediate connection with and starts to fall for. Typical romantic comedy, right? The perfect guy is just around the corner. But did we mention that Francis is a hitman? Oh, and that he is having trouble with a mob family? Not quite your classic rom-com, but that is what makes Mr. Right so great.
The plot and writing are quirky, and the two leads, Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell, are phenomenal. The New York Times described the film as having “Fred Astaire flavor” and had only good things to say about leading lady Kendrick. “Now, with the slick, frenetic confection Mr. Right, she dips into that tricky genre, the hybrid action thriller and romantic comedy — and scores again.” It shouldn’t shock us that Kendrick is fantastic in this movie, as she has been in pretty much every other film she’s done, but this movie slipped by us, and we have to give her some major props for her work here. Another fun fact about Kendrick? Katie Nehra, who plays Kendrick’s character’s best friend in the film, revealed this to Hollywood Life about her witty co-star: “We had so much fun, and she’s a great improviser, so we would improvise in scenes and that’s always nice.” How can we play Kendrick’s best friend? We’ll be at the next audition!
Celeste & Jesse Forever (2012)
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Not your typical romantic comedy, Celeste & Jesse Forever feels unique because it feels real. This film tells the story of a married couple who decide to separate, but want to continue being friends throughout the process. They blur the lines of still living together for some time while also trying to date and see other people. Although the movie has some dramatic moments, Celeste and Jesse have the same sense of humor, and we see that consistently throughout the film. Their relationship is complicated, as any real relationship is. The New York Times’ review of the film is spot on when it says that the writers of this film, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, “have righted the sex imbalance of the bromance with a story about two people who, together and alone, express an ideal rarely seen in American movies: a man and woman whose equality is burnished in friendship, not just in bed and marriage.”
Just as this movie quietly tackles topics past romantic comedies have not, it also seemed to be released quietly, with many not knowing when the film came out. The casting choices were on point, with Rashida Jones playing the practical Celeste and Andy Samberg playing the relaxed artist, Jesse. We have an inside look at their relationship and because of that, we are able to experience the joys and heartache the characters feel. It’s a great movie to watch when you do want a laugh with a taste of reality, found in a genre in which we normally experience escape instead of the real world.
The Spectacular Now (2013)
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Another film that feels similar to the reality vibes of Celeste & Jesse Forever has to be The Spectacular Now. But instead of a married couple going through a separation, we follow two teens, Aimee and Sutter, who are experiencing first love. The casting of this movie is absolutely perfect, with Shailene Woodley playing book-smart Aimee and Miles Teller playing the more street-smart, partying Sutter. Though very different, they have a connection that draws them together. While we see the dramatic moments that follow young love, we also see the beauty of it. Teller’s character brings humor to many scenes, making it easy to see why Woodley’s character falls for him. Although not the most well-known film, it became a favorite among critics and its audience. As The Washington Post commented, the movie “proves that revisiting reality can be so much more powerful than avoiding it.” The reviewer went on to say, “The movie captures the raw excitement and heartbreak of adolescence so completely that it manages to replace a seen-it-all jaded heart with the butterflies that accompany fresh experiences.” Be sure to also check out the book of the same name that this movie is based on, written by Tim Tharp.
Charade (1963)
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For this one we’re throwing it back, all the way to 1963. Charade is a film starring two of the most well-known actors in film history, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. But it seems to be one of those hidden gems that not everyone knows about. Hepburn plays Regina “Reggie” Lampert, a widow who is put in a tough spot when it’s discovered that her recently deceased husband had worked with three other men to steal a fortune and then abandoned them to keep it all for himself. Those men are now back because they think Reggie knows where the fortune is. Grant’s character comes in to help Reggie, and the audience continues to learn surprises about him throughout the film. Charade is a fun movie that’s full of suspense, along with the comedy and romance we’re wanting to see. It’s fun to watch and be transported into the world of the ’60s. And we’d be lying if we said Hepburn’s clothes weren’t a great reason to watch. Seriously, every outfit is fabulous. If you want to see an oldie but a goodie, check out this movie.
Friends With Kids (2011)
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Just like many others on this list, Friends With Kids is an unconventional romantic comedy. The film was written, produced, and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt, who also starred in it. The story follows two friends, Julie (played by Westfeldt) and Jason (played by Adam Scott) who start to notice that once their friends have kids, they never seem to be around anymore, and their marriages suffer. The two friends decide to have a child together and then decide to find who they want to marry. As you can imagine, the plot thickens and we see how that decision not only affects Julie and Jason, but their couple friends as well. Westfeldt explained to PopSugar where this plot idea came from. “I mean, so many people in my life at this point have made that profound life change and transition to becoming parents. And I think everybody handles it a little differently… It was really a tapestry of all of those things that I’ve observed, and then I just added make-believe to it.” The film has an impressive list of stars (many who were also in the fantastic film Bridesmaids), including Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, and Megan Fox. But as Rolling Stone says, Westfeldt is the one who steals the show. “In front of the camera and behind it, she’s the live current that pulls us in and makes us care.”
America’s Sweethearts (2001)
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America’s Sweethearts is a top romantic comedy pick due to its stellar cast. Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack, Julia Roberts, and Billy Crystal star in the film. Seriously, could it get any better? The film follows Crystal’s character, Lee Phillips, who is a film publicist and is given the task to promote a film starring two actors who were together and are now going through a split. These actors are played by Zeta-Jones and Cusack. Roberts comes in as Zeta Jones’ sister and assistant. The film reminds us of some real Hollywood love stories and breakups we’ve seen in the tabloids, and we can’t help but think these have inspired the movie a bit. With Crystal’s ever-present humor and Zeta-Jones, Cusack and Roberts’ per-usual fantastic acting chops, it’s a movie you can’t help but sit back and enjoy.
Never Been Kissed (2009)
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We have to include a solid 1990s romantic comedy movie on this list. In Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore stars as Josie Geller, a copy editor at the Chicago Sun-Times who goes undercover at a high school to show parents what happens in their kids’ lives. Still having never had a real relationship, Barrymore’s Geller has to go through the high school experience all over again and has some not-so-pleasant flashbacks to her own high school years. This time around, though, she falls for the English teacher, played by Michael Vartan, and as any good romantic comedy promises, chaos ensues. Barrymore brings laughs to the film, but it’s really David Arquette, playing Barrymore’s on-screen brother, who delivers the comedy. He also ends up going back to high school, but he’s doing it as his second chance of making it big on the baseball field. It’s a feel-good film that at the very least it should be checked out for its fabulous ’90s fashion and music. Roger Ebert described it well when he said, “Never Been Kissed is not deep or sophisticated, but it’s funny and big-hearted and it wins us over.” Indeed, we are officially won over.
ENTERTAINMENT
Things About Dirty Dancing You Only Notice As An Adult
BY JULIE SPRANKLES/UPDATED: AUG. 14, 2019 4:34 PM EST
Who didn’t love Dirty Dancing? If you spent the better part of your childhood pretending to do the iconic lift scene from Dirty Dancing, you’re definitely not alone. At the lake, in the pool, off the sofa — countless ’90s kids (and even younger generations) have risked limbs and collected bruises in pursuit of perfecting the classic moment between Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle. Nostalgia reigns supreme where this 1987 flick is concerned.
A lot has happened since the film’s debut, though. Society has changed; you’ve changed; the actors who brought those seminal characters to the big screen have changed. If you were to re-watch the movie, would it still strike you the same? Or would your added life perspective lead you to look at the movie in a new light? Lean into the latter by considering the following things you only notice about Dirty Dancing as an adult.
Wait, is that Newman from Seinfeld in Dirty Dancing?
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Can you even put a face to Stan, the resort greeter-slash-emcee? If it’s been a minute since you watched Dirty Dancing, the answer is probably a hard no. But in re-watching, you might just yell out, “Hey, that’s Wayne Knight!” Although Stan’s role is minor with just a few scenes throughout the movie, Knight’s face is easily recognizable to anyone who watched TV or movies in the ’90s.
Knight was just starting out when he snagged this bit part in Dirty Dancing, so of course we wouldn’t know him yet. But in 1993, he was the bad guy in Jurassic Park (apologies in advance if that classically annoying “ah, ah, ah, you didn’t say the magic word” computer hack is now stuck in your head). Then, from 1992 to 1998, Knight went on to star as the annoying mailman Newman in Seinfeld.
Watching as an adult, with the context of his future iconic roles, you half expect Dirty Dancing’s Stan to break out a can of shaving cream and start sneaking out the DNA of rich people or for Jerry Seinfeld to pop out and say, “Hello, Newman.”
Billy stares at Lisa in Dirty Dancing like he wants to eat her soul
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The funniest part of Dirty Dancing happens to be unintentional. The moment takes place when the Houseman family first arrives at Kellerman’s. The owner, Max Kellerman, approaches the family with staff member Billy, who presumably came along to carry the luggage. And then it happens.
There’s a solid few minutes where Billy is staring at Lisa with the strangest look on his face. It’s so awkward to watch you may not be able to stifle your laughter. Since these characters have very little interaction in the movie, it makes you wonder if there wasn’t some tension between the actors.
After all, Patrick Swayze admitted he was legitimately annoyed with Jennifer Grey during filming, revealing in his autobiography The Time of My Life (via The Telegraph), “She seemed particularly emotional, sometimes bursting into tears if someone criticized her. Other times, she slipped into silly moods, forcing us to do scenes over and over again after she’d start laughing.”
Why didn’t Baby pick Billy in Dirty Dancing?
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It’s obviously hard to hold a candle to Patrick Swayze, and nobody envies the guy who has to stand next to him and try to seem cool, too. But Billy — the cousin of Swayze’s Johnny Castle character in Dirty Dancing— didn’t get the credit he deserves. This has little to do with his looks — though, to be clear, he was very handsome. The real reason Billy deserves more attention is because of how nice he was to Baby. In fact, they seemed to have natural chemistry from the moment they meet, when she helps him get luggage out of the car and sparks fly.
Billy never treats Baby like, well, a baby. He is honest with her, always keeping her in the loop about what is going on. The movie even hints that perhaps Billy harbored some feelings for her, since he tells Johnny in the memorable “I carried a watermelon” scene that “she’s with me.” On the flip side, Swayze’s Johnny Castle was a jerk to Baby for roughly half of the movie.
The older you get, the more you appreciate the truly decent romantic interests over the dark and dangerous ones — thus being more prone to flights of fancy about Baby and Billy (they even sound good together).
That Dirty Dancing vacation cabin must have cost a small fortune
When you think of a getaway at a lake retreat, quaint images of log cabins and rustic accommodations usually come to mind. Unless, apparently, you’re the Housemans. Granted, they were a wealthy family and would arguably have had a more luxurious definition of the standard family vacation. But, c’mon, they really Marie Antoinette’d the whole rustic cabin getaway vibe.
Dirty Dancing makes it seem as though their cabin is the size of a moderate-sized family home in the suburbs, and they have it all to themselves. Did everyone have their own cabin? If so, who stayed in the palatial main house? How much do these digs cost? So many questions!
While there’s no way to know those answers with 100 percent certainty, this much is known: The resort where the movie was filmed is called Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, Virginia. The actual cabin Baby’s family stayed in is called the Virginia Cottage and, yes, you can totally book it — but it’ll set you back a cool $329 per night during the summer season.
They chose the most unsightly spot ever to hang the staff quarters sign in Dirty Dancing
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This is an upscale resort, right? And ol’ man Max Kellerman in Dirty Dancing is obviously pretty persnickety about appearances. He explicitly states throughout the movie how important it is to keep the guests happy, the water glasses clean and, in general, the guise of perfection. So why on Earth is there a gigantic red dumpster on the premises? In the scene when Baby goes wandering one evening and runs into Billy carrying the watermelons, she walks right past a massive construction-debris-style dumpster. On that dumpster is a simple black and white sign that reads “STAFF QUARTERS NO GUESTS PLEASE.”
Since there is no reference in the movie to any remodeling, construction, or the like being done on the premises, it seems like a jerk move for Kellerman to place the dumpster right outside the staff cabins and, especially, to hang the staff quarters sign there.
What kind of person just tosses expensive outerwear on the floor?
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Dirty Dancing establishes upfront that Johnny is part of the dance crew. However, you don’t learn until later that he offers private dance lessons — a fact that becomes evident when the Housemans watch Johnny dancing with a woman named Vivian. Mr. Kellerman explains that the staff call women like her “bungalow bunnies,” because they tend to book a lot of *ahem* private lessons when their husbands are busy playing poker.
As if all of that wasn’t shocking enough, Vivian the cougar shrugs off her fur stole mid-dance and tosses it on the floor. The floor. What kind of fresh privileged nonsense is this? That’s, like, a down payment on a Toyota Corolla. Coupled with the fact that Vivian later gets Johnny fired, you spend most of the movie hoping she gets her karmic comeuppance in the next life.
TBH, Dirty Dancing’s Johnny and Penny make it impossible not to ‘ship them
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Just as Baby seems better suited to Billy in Dirty Dancing, Johnny seems better suited to his ex-turned-BFF, Penny. You can’t watch the movie and not secretly hope these two will wind up together in the end. Johnny is just so tender and sweet with Penny, always taking care of her. Naturally, the affection is mutual, with Penny being fiercely protective of Johnny. Billy tells Baby the two haven’t been together romantically since they were all kids, but does anyone really buy that? For the record, no one dances with their ex like that — unless it is closely followed by sex with an ex.
Patrick Swayze himself admitted in his memoir, The Time of My Life, that he, too, felt strongly about these characters’ connection. “I felt all along that Johnny should ultimately end up with Penny, as they were so much alike and a more realistic couple than Johnny and Baby,” Swayze said (via Entertainment Weekly).
Dirty Dancing’s Johnny owes his sweet ride a serious apology
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Vivian the cougar isn’t the only character to make a move that displays a blatant disregard for valuable items in Dirty Dancing. Our jaws dropped when Vivian threw her fur stole to the floor, but we quickly realize it actually isn’t that surprising — she is exorbitantly wealthy and entitled, so making such a potentially costly move doesn’t faze her. However, Johnny Castle hasn’t lived a life of privilege. He knows what it means to struggle for a dollar, which makes it particularly baffling when he busts out his car window without so much as a second thought.
Really, what reasonable person decides that’s the best course of action upon locking your keys in the car? Johnny, man, c’mon! If you’re enterprising enough to get women to drop their room keys in your pocket multiple times a day, you can troubleshoot a locked car door.
They clearly didn’t think through the whole log-dancing thing in Dirty Dancing
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After hours upon hours of frustrating dance rehearsals in Johnny Castle’s studio — or sweat lodge, judging by the pair’s visible perspiration — Johnny finally springs Baby for a bit of fresh air. Yet, instead of taking her somewhere easy to practice like, say, an open field, Johnny drags her to a remote part of the forest.
Baby was a beginner at this point, so of course Johnny would take her to dance on a narrow log precariously balanced high above what appears to be shallow water filled with big rocks and other deadly instruments of Mother Nature. Yep, that’s completely responsible.
Patrick Swayze, who played Johnny, knew better than anyone the perils of such endeavors. According to Time, the Dirty Dancing log-balance dance scene aggravated a previous knee injury to the point it almost derailed the iconic lift scene. Stick to the dance studio, kids!
This is why Baby’s mom in Dirty Dancing looks so familiar
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The first thing you notice about Baby’s mother, Marjorie Houseman, is an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Where have you seen her before? Why does her face look so familiar? Spoiler alert: There’s a good reason.
It takes a minute to register since she was so much younger in Dirty Dancing, but the actress playing Baby’s mom is none other than Kelly Bishop. Ringing any bells? ‘Cause it should be. Bishop brought to life the inimitable (and equally rich and privileged — she wears that look well) character Emily Gilmore on Gilmore Girls.
In addition to Gilmore Girls, Bishop’s post-Dirty Dancing days include work on One Life to Live, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Bunheads and The Good Wife.
Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze is gone but not forgotten
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After watching Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing (or Point Break, Fatherhood, Ghost, and every other role after that), it’s difficult to imagine a world without him in it. Johnny Castle will forever be the effortlessly cool guy you dreamed of delivering you from the proverbial corner.
Sadly, though, Swayze passed away in 2009 after a waging a heroic effort in his 20-month-long fight against pancreatic cancer. Among the countless people who lamented his death and offered support to Swayze’s widow, Lisa Niemi, was his Dirty Dancing co-star Jennifer Grey. Speaking to People, she fondly described Swayze as “a real cowboy with a tender heart,” adding, “it was not surprising to me that the war he waged on cancer was so courageous and dignified.”
Even as the years continue to creep by, seeing Swayze dance onscreen and hearing his voice singing “She’s Like the Wind” (I’m not crying; you are), the actor’s legacy clearly lives on.
ENTERTAINMENT
Whatever Happened To The Girl From Dirty Dancing?
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BY BECKI LEDFORD/UPDATED: MARCH 7, 2023 4:39 PM EST
You may have first seen her in Red Dawn or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but there’s no denying that Jennifer Grey’s most iconic role is Frances “Baby” Houseman in 1987’s Dirty Dancing. Now more than 30 years old, the beloved movie is a favorite of people of all ages and, despite its 1960s setting, somehow feels truly timeless. Although a 2017 television remake tried to capture some of that charm, it was ultimately a flop. While Abigail Breslin did her best to channel Baby, many were left wondering what happened to the original Baby after all these years. So just what has Jennifer Grey been up to since carrying that watermelon? We’ve got the answers!
She was in a car accident with Matthew Broderick
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Even if you remember that Grey played Matthew Broderick’s sister in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you may not remember that she was also in a relationship with Broderick. Even more under the radar, then, is the fact that Grey and Broderick were in a serious car accident just before Dirty Dancing was released. While on vacation in Ireland, the pair were in a rented car when Broderick (who was driving) collided head on with another driver, killing two people.
While Grey only suffered bumps and bruises externally, the accident left her with emotional scars. “I became America’s sweetheart within five days of the accident,” she told People in 2010. “The juxtaposition of that deep sorrow, the survivor’s guilt … and then being celebrated as the new big thing just didn’t jibe. It didn’t feel good to be the toast of the town.”
So Grey didn’t relish her newfound fame like she likely would have otherwise, choosing instead to take a bit of a step back. “The impact was emotional and physical,” she said in the People interview. “My body was never the same, my head was never the same, my ambition was never the same.”
She was in Bloodhounds of Broadway with Madonna
While Grey didn’t embrace her Dirty Dancing fame the way she might have if not for the accident, she did take on another silver screen role when she starred alongside Madonna and Matt Dillon in Bloodhounds of Broadway in 1989. While Grey’s performance was met with mixed reviews (Variety said she did “a good job”), the film was met with overall negative reviews (with The New York Times noting that it “never gets going”). But if nothing else, Grey’s duet with Madonna showed audiences that not only could she dance, she could also sing.
She dated Johnny Depp
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After her relationship with Matthew Broderick, Grey was linked to another Hollywood actor. After A Nightmare on Elm Street, but before Cry Baby and Edward Scissorhands, none other than Johnny Depp wooed Grey. While they were only together for a year, and famously only appeared in a single photograph together, the two were actually engaged during their short romance. Given the current state of Depp’s personal and financial life, we’d say the actress probably dodged a bullet. (Add that to things we never thought we’d say a couple of years ago.)
She got a nose job
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While 1989 might have been the year she was in a movie with Madonna as well as the year she was engaged to Johnny Depp, it wasn’t all positive. It was also the year she got the nose job that changed everything. Well, sort of. It was 1989 when Grey got her first nose job, a decision that People notes was a choice that perhaps “most ambitious people would not have made” as it “radically altered her appearance” in the long run. But that could have been because fame wasn’t really what Grey was after, with the impact of the car accident with Broderick still lingering. “I really felt like I wanted to be a wife and a mom,” she told People, but her acting days were not yet over.
The era of TV movies
While Grey might not have thrived as a Hollywood starlet, that didn’t mean she had to give up acting. So she turned to TV movies. In 1990 she was in Murder in Mississippi, which recounted the murder of three civil rights workers by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. In the film she played the wife of Mickey Schwerner, one of the murdered activists.
The same year she starred in Criminal Justice and If the Shoe Fits, where she played an attorney, and Rob Lowe’s dressing room assistant in a modern retelling of Cinderella, respectively. In 1991’s Eyes of a Witness she played a doctor in Kenya whose father is suspected of murder and in 1993 she once again played an attorney in A Case for Murder. If you don’t remember any of them, don’t worry — neither does anyone else.
She briefly did theater
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With her career seemingly relegated to TV movies, Grey branched out into theater in 1993 with a role in The Twilight of the Golds. In it she played Suzanne, the pregnant wife of a doctor whose biotech research has discovered a way to detect chromosomal differences early in pregnancy. These very tests show that the couple’s healthy baby has a 90 percent chance of being gay. While the question of what this means for the couple (Suzanne’s brother is also gay) — and what this would mean for the audience members watching it — certainly brought contemporary issues to the forefront, the play was not exactly well-received otherwise. As of 2017, it’s Grey’s only run in theater.
Then she got another nose job
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Around this time in the early ’90s, the recognizable face of Baby Houseman faded forever into distant memories and VHS replays when a piece of cartilage broke off from the first surgery and she underwent a second nose job. While the first may have drastically altered her appearance, the second made her virtually unrecognizable. According to the NY Daily News, while she was sedated, the doctor “decided to turn a minor change into a major change.” While her career seemed to be on a downswing already, Grey went from still being a known name (and face), to what she called “complete obscurity.”
She kept working, but nobody really knew who she was
To Grey’s credit, she didn’t let her second, appearance-altering nose job stop her from working. The thing is, you probably didn’t recognize her in anything you may have seen her in. Contact Music reports she said at the time of her nose job, “It was like being in a witness protection program or being invisible.”
From this point she started primarily working on low-budget movies or doing bit parts in television shows. She made a guest appearance on an episode of Friends in 1995 where she and Rachel, uh, shared similar tastes in men, along with an appearance on Fallen Angels where she played a would-be serial killer victim, and the 1995 romantic comedy Lover’s Knot. From there she picked up more forgettable roles in 1996’s Portraits of a Killer (another attorney role), both Red Meat and The Player in 1997, followed by Outrage and Since You’ve Been Gone in 1998, and Bounce in 2000.
She considered changing her name to Wanda West
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As her parts got smaller and smaller, Grey started to realize just how much of an impact her drastically different appearance was having on her success. No longer did “Jennifer Grey” mean the same thing it meant in 1987 when she was coming off the high of Dirty Dancing. In fact, it was around this time that Grey considered changing her name altogether.
According to Newsweek, after the nose job incident Grey invented the monicker and personality Wanda West, reportedly named after Grey’s old street (Wanda) in Hollywood. The idea, as Grey told Newsweek, was that Wanda West could potentially get more roles than Grey herself was getting at the time. “I’ve got to tell you, I think it could have worked,” she said. “This town is so built on who’s the new face, and no one would have ever known it was me.” Ultimately she decided to stick with who she really was, telling Newsweek, “I guess it’s a lost opportunity now — I’m stuck with me.”
She played herself in a TV series
If you can only be you, the best way to do that is on a television show, right? So that’s exactly what Grey did. From 1999-2001 she played a “heightened reality version of herself” in the TV series It’s Like, You Know… on ABC. Throughout the series, Grey made fun of herself, including her nose jobs and her history of Hollywood relationships. “I decided to make fun of this, to make my fiasco become my reality. After all, it’s not cancer, and it’s absurd that just a nose job could wreak such havoc,” she told the Washington Post. Compared in multiple reviews to Seinfeld (but “sunnier”) the show never quite hit its stride and was canceled midway through its second season.
She married Clark Gregg in 2001
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While her Hollywood relationships may have been fodder for tabloids and her ill-fated sitcom, Grey finally found true love in 2001 when she married Clark Gregg — who you may know from The New Adventures of Old Christine or, more recently, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D — on Martha’s Vineyard. The couple had only dated for about a year prior and were wed by Gregg’s father Robert, an Episcopal minister. The couple’s daughter Stella was born five months later and, as Grey told People, “it was very hard to get me out of the house because I didn’t want to miss any of it. It was all about family, friends.”
She turned to voice work
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With more of a focus on family and her TV series canceled, Grey picked up a few more small parts between 2001-2008, including Ritual in 2002, The Road to Christmas alongside her husband in 2006, a three-episode arc on the show John from Cincinnati in 2007, and small parts in the movies Keith and Redbelt, both in 2008. It was around this time that she turned to something that didn’t require her face to be recognizable at all — voice work. So even if you weren’t seeing much of her, you (or your kids) probably heard her! Beginning in 2008 and continuing periodically through 2014, Grey voiced several characters on the Disney television show Phineas and Ferb, including Louisa Patel, the principal’s assistant Mrs. Pierpoint, and the villainous Dr. Gevaarlijk.
She underwent spinal surgeries and battled cancer
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While Grey had continued to work in the years since her 1987 car accident, there were lingering injuries that only continued to worsen. In an interview with People, Grey described “headaches that lasted four days” due to the degenerated ligaments that had ripped in the accident. While Grey tried to get along with just Advil and ice packs, she was approached multiple times to do Dancing with the Stars. Although she had said no more than once, she finally agreed at the encouragement of friends Michael J. Fox and Jamie Lee Curtis. To do that, she needed a physical.
The doctors discovered she had a compressed spinal cord, which meant that all it would take to lead to paralysis was “one slip, one fall, one minor rear-end.” Grey’s doctor ordered two spinal surgeries. During these surgeries, her doctor became worried about a lump she had previously been told was a benign thyroid nodule. Turns out, it was full-blown thyroid cancer. This led to two more surgeries to have her thyroid removed entirely.
Luckily, Grey did not require chemotherapy or radiation and after those four surgeries she has a titanium plate in her neck and is cancer-free. With a relative clean bill of health, she decided it was time to finally tackle DWTS. Grey told Good Morning America, “I do feel that just the movement towards the joy, in spite of the fear, was a very important shift for me.”
She won Dancing with the Stars
And embrace that joy she did. When Grey joined the 11th season of Dancing with the Stars, it mean rehearsing seven days a week for six hours each day. But Grey told People that getting back to dancing, and the spotlight, was something she hadn’t even realized how much she missed from her life. “It’s like I’ve been starving myself because of what people might think of me,” she said. “This is like eating a delicious steak after 23 years of fasting.”
In that early interview she also wasn’t really looking to win. She said, “If my dancing is a disaster-it doesn’t define me as a person. The only reason I’m doing this is for myself.” Quickly, however, Grey became the season favorite. With the highest individual score for the Cha-cha-cha, Viennese Waltz, Rumba, Waltz, Tango, Paso doble, and Freestyle (and tying for the highest score for the Quickstep), Grey was on the top of the leaderboard more than any other contestant during the season.
After rupturing a disc in her spine the night before the finale, Grey still pulled it out for the win. She told People, “I didn’t even think about winning when I first started. This is so unbelievable. I feel so grateful, so blessed, that I had this opportunity to spend three months learning to dance and getting paid for it. I don’t know that there’s any experience that will ever be anything like this again.”
She starred in Amazon’s Red Oaks
Beginning in 2014, Grey found her way back to television by way of Amazon’s Red Oaks. Set in the 1980s, Grey plays the mother of university student David who just got a job as a tennis coach at the Red Oaks Country Club and is trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. Grey’s character Judy is trying to figure things out herself, most notably, her sexual identity.
In a panel ahead of the second season (via After Ellen), Grey explained her character’s struggle of “not knowing if it’s just this marriage that she wasn’t into, or maybe it’s not maybe it’s not men, or maybe it’s just a different man, or maybe it’s a woman. And because it’s [the 1980s], not now, and because she came from a time when it wasn’t okay to be gay, and it’s just like it’s just so new, the idea of what that is, that’s nothing she has ever explored.”
She walked in the LA Women’s March
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Not only did Grey attend the L.A. Women’s March in January 2017 along with thousands of other women and men, she wore what is certainly the most perfect shirt for the occasion. Captured in her Instagram photo before the march, the shirt addressed the leaked tape of President Donald Trump referring to grabbing women “by the p***y.” Grey’s shirt was the perfect blend of Dirty Dancing and feminism, stating, “Nobody puts p***y in a corner.” Lance Bass of ‘N Sync agreed, saying on Instagram that she won best shirt at the march.
She turned down a role in the Dirty Dancing remake
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With the critically panned Dirty Dancing remake still fresh in a lot of people’s minds, you may be wondering why Grey wasn’t a part of it. It turns out she was asked, and she turned down a role. “I was asked to do something on that show and I was flattered because I always want to be asked because it’s nice to want to be included. But for me, it would be sacrosanct for me to do it because it didn’t feel appropriate to me,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “It feels like if you’re going to do your own thing, do your own thing. I wouldn’t say [what role was offered] but I will tell you, it wasn’t Baby!” Grey said before the remake was aired that she was excited to watch it and that she was “flattered and excited for people who are excited enough to put their stamp on it and see what they make of it and how they make it their own.”
Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for viewers. The Atlantic called it a “sad, strange production” while Entertainment Weekly said the remake itself “belongs in a corner.” Ouch. Looks like it probably would have been a lot better if Grey had stepped on board.
What’s next for Jennifer Grey?
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By now it’s clear that nose job or not, Jennifer Grey has talent. From acting to dancing to voiceover work, she’s kept busy over the years (sometimes quietly, sometimes making a splash). So what’s next on the docket for the star? Deadline reported in January 2017 that Red Oaks has been renewed for a third and final season, so hopefully we can expect to see Grey bring her character Judy some closure. She’ll also be seen in the 2017 independent film Untogether alongside Billy Crystal, Jamie Dornan, Jemima Kirke, Lola Kirke, and Ben Mendelsohn, and will be providing the voice of Edna in 2018’s animated Duck Duck Goose.
While it’s unclear exactly what other projects Grey might line up in the next several years, she’s made one thing perfectly clear: she’s ready and willing to put in the hard work and we haven’t seen the last of her.
