Actors Who Revealed Their Best On-Screen Kissing Partner

Being an A-list actor might sound like the antithesis of a "tough job." First of all, movie stars get paid millions to go off to some far-flung locale where the greatest technicians in the world make them look flawlessly beautiful for when they pretend to fight dinosaurs or pretend to save the world from aliens or pretend to fall madly in love with some kind of fish-man-monster. They also get catered meals every day, and a person drives them to and from the set and their luxury hotel rooms. 

One other apparent perk in this career path? These movie stars get to — nay, have to — kiss other movie stars, which, by and large, are typically an aesthetically pleasing and conventionally attractive bunch. On the other hand, it's admittedly kind of weird and uncomfortable to kiss somebody with whom you're not romantically involved, especially when it's in front of a huge crew ... and you have to do it over and over again at various angles. And it's worth pointing out that several actors have outright hated locking lips with their co-stars. 

But hey, it's part of the job, and some actors have admitted in print, on TV, and on social media that some of their on-screen kissing partners are better than others. These are the absolute best they've ever had in the business of on-screen kissing.

Unlike Ryan Reynolds, Penn Badgley knows how to properly answer a question about the merits of on-screen kissing partners so as to pay respect to the other half of an off-screen relationship. When asked by Andy Cohen about his most memorable workplace kisses — both good and bad — Badgley didn't hesitate to give an answer. First of all, his best happened while making "Gossip Girl" (which is probably the project for which Badgley is best known, apart from his Netflix series "You"), and it happened with co-star Blake Lively. The reason: A romantic injection of verisimilitude. "We actually had a relationship at the time," Badgley said.

The worst kissing of Badgley's acting life also came about via "Gossip Girl," and it also happened with Blake Lively. The reason: a not so romantic injection of verisimilitude. Badgley's character and Lively's characters had to kiss ... after the couple split up in real life. That, for Badgley, made for a very awkward and uncomfortable moment.

Bryce Dallas Howard has locked movie star lips with a number of leading men in the pursuit of silver screen magic. When promoting her 2016 movie "Gold" on PEOPLE Now, host Jeremy Parsons asked Howard to talk about what it was like kissing her co-star in the film, Lincoln enthusiast and "The Lincoln Lawyer" star Matthew McConaughey. His character had to drink a lot of alcohol, but McConaughey actually drank a non-alcoholic, tea-based concoction that looked like booze on screen. That, Howard recalled, made McConaughey's mouth quite pleasant to kiss. "It was pretty good," Howard said. "It was like some sort of good, healthy aesthetic substitute for alcohol."

But he doesn't take first place in the Bryce Dallas Howard Kissing Competition. That honor goes to her co-star in "Jurassic World," Chris Pratt. His breath, she said, reminded her of "Starburst," making for a superior, candy-flavored screen kiss. "He's perfect in every way," Howard added.

Well, at least there was one bright spot in the bleak, tragic, and infuriating Oscar-nominated 2007 drama "Atonement." The movie required star Keira Knightley to smash lips with fellow attractive British actor James McAvoy, which she found to be a sublime experience. She told People that the former goat-man of Narnia "is the best kisser ever" amid a flurry of giggles. 

But then, Keira Knightley just seems like a very game movie kisser. In 2006, she said that all the kissy time on "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" was nothing but delightful, particularly her smoochin'-at-sea scene with Johnny Depp (via UPI). "I couldn't ask for a better kissing scene with Johnny Depp actually," Knightley said. "I think my 14-year-old self was yelping with pleasure. It was fantastic! What more can a girl ask for? I've got Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom and I get to kiss both of them. It's wonderful!"

Gwyneth Paltrow has made a lot of romantic movies featuring memorable kisses. She even kissed Shakespeare in "Shakespeare in Love," a movie so charming, romantic, and kiss-rich that it won her an Oscar for best actress. But the film that Paltrow did as a lark is the one that produced the conscious uncoupler's most highly regarded personal lip-lock moment.

"I did a little cameo once at the beginning of 'Austin Powers 3,' I think it was, and I got to make out with Tom Cruise," Paltrow said on a 2011 episode of "The Rachael Ray Show" (via the New York Daily News). In a sequence for what was technically titled "Austin Powers in Goldmember," Cruise played Austin Powers for a quick minute (instead of Mike Myers), and Paltrow played a send-up of a Bond Girl named "Dixie Normous." (Say it out loud ... get it?) Then, they kiss, because Austin Powers is irresistible no matter who is playing him. "He was an amazing kisser!" Paltrow proclaimed.

Some women want a guy with a great sense of humor, but that shouldn't mean they should have to sacrifice other qualities in a potential mate, such as the ability to kiss real good. So, if only those two things — being funny and knowing one's way around a lady's mouth — were relationship criteria, then actor Will Ferrell just might be the world's greatest romantic partner.

In 2007, Amy Adams was a guest on "The Rachael Ray Show" (via People), and the host asked about the kissing skills of some of the actor's male co-stars. As for Patrick Dempsey from "Enchanted," Adams said he was a "lovely" kisser. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, which is what she saved for Ferrell, her leading man in 2006's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." "He's a fantastic kisser!" Adams emphatically stated. "I was not expecting that."

Ferrell's "Land of the Lost" cohort, Anna Friel, later echoed Adams' sentiments almost verbatim. "Will Ferrell is a really fantastic kisser. You wouldn't expect it from him," Friel said, adding, "And he's got twinkly blue eyes and he was gentler than I thought that he perhaps might be. So if anyone needs a good kiss they should just get on the phone and ask Will." (That's not really how phones work, but still, high praise.)

The way Vin Diesel tells it, there was fuel, there was fire, and Charlize Theron was burning with desire when they snogged on screen in the 2017 action film "The Fate of the Furious." But maybe those gasoline fumes made him misread his co-star's demeanor. Speaking to USA Today, Diesel revealed that their kiss had him riding high. "I was definitely not complaining," he said while grinning like his character Dom when he knows he has a street race won. "... Charlize Theron is not a bad kissing partner to have. There are worse things that can happen to you." As for how he believed Theron felt about shooting the scene, he asserted, "Do I know she enjoyed it? Oh my God, yeah. ... A kiss can't lie, lips don't lie. ... She owned it."

But Theron seemed baffled by Diesel's recollection of the kiss when she appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." As she pointed out, it was supposed to be unpleasant for Dom, who did not consent to it. "As he should've, his character is just standing there frozen, like a dead fish," she said (via The Hollywood Reporter). Theron also disputed Diesel's claim that she enjoyed herself, saying, "I like a little bit more movement in my men."

When Ellen DeGeneres read Theron's comments to Diesel on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the stunned star hopped out of his seat and asked the audience, "Do I look like a dead fish?"

Anne Hathaway got to experience a lot of different kissing techniques when director Garry Marshall set out in search of the guy who would believably make Mia Thermopolis' foot pop (again) in "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement." In 2004, she told the Los Angeles Times that she had to screen test with numerous actors before Chris Pine landed the part. "Don't get me wrong, I love kissing, but the idea of having to kiss 12 different people that I've just met in one 10-hour period of time is a little much for me," Hathaway said.

Hathaway had mastered the art of making out with a relative stranger by the time she filmed the 2007 biographical romance "Becoming Jane." She'd also established some boundaries she expected her co-stars to honor while shooting kissing scenes. The reason her on-screen love interest, James McAvoy, earned her admiration when they had to film such a scene wasn't because of the kiss itself but because she didn't have to have an awkward conversation with him about her perfectly reasonable demands beforehand. "He turned to me and said, 'Closed mouths, no tongue!' That's what I normally say to people so it was a pleasure working with him," Hathaway told Heart (via Female First).

Hathaway also revealed that she just keeps her teeth clamped firmly together if an actor ignores her wishes. "So they end up licking at your gums and teeth ... it's very attractive!" she said.

When Extra asked Jada Pinkett Smith about her kiss with her "Gotham" co-star, Makenzie Leigh, in 2014, it reminded the actor of another time she locked lips with a fellow female star. "You know, I got to kiss Monica Bellucci," she said. "... That was the best on-screen kiss I ever had." Their memorable smooch appeared in the video game "Enter the Matrix."

But just one year later, Smith told ET that another actor had supplanted Bellucci as her favorite co-star to kiss. Unfortunately, the pitch-perfect spicy scene she and Elizabeth Banks filmed for "Magic Mike XXL" ended up on the cutting room floor. In the film, Pinkett and Banks' respective characters, Rome and Paris, are major moguls in the male stripper world. It's quickly established that the women have a history worthy of a prequel film when they greet each other warmly by touching foreheads and clasping hands. It's actually a pivotal scene, as Rome uses their relationship to gain entry to the stripping convention where the male dancers' grand finale performance takes place. The kissing footage would have made it even more blatantly obvious to filmgoers that they had romantic feelings for each other. 

"I was very mad that they took it out of the movie," Smith said. "The girls always give me the best kisses. Monica Bellucci gave me a good kiss, Elizabeth Banks gave me an even better one."

Leonardo DiCaprio seemed to assume that puckering up with Sharon Stone in the 1995 movie "The Quick and the Dead" would be an enjoyable experience, but he told The Morning Call, "To tell you the truth, it wasn't that great. She grabbed me by the back of my hair and pushed her lips on mine and then threw my head away. It didn't feel like a real kiss." Two years later, filmgoers fell in love with DiCaprio when he planted one on Kate Winslet in "Titanic," and he later claimed on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that the star who is arguably his most famous romantic co-lead is also his favorite all-time kissing partner.

But when Extra quizzed the on-screen couple about DiCaprio's comments on the red carpet at the 2005 SAG Awards, Winslet claimed that her co-star was really colder than a killer iceberg when it came to kissing her. "I can tell you right now, he hated it!" Winslet dished. "And he would complain bitterly."

DiCaprio defended himself by explaining that it wasn't the kissing itself that he struggled with. He said that their makeup wound up on each other's faces every time they kissed, and because they were wearing drastically different shades of foundation, it was glaringly obvious that it wasn't smudge-proof. Presumably, this meant that the pair were constantly having their makeup touched up in between takes of their kissing scenes, which would be understandably frustrating.

"Barbie" star Margot Robbie is totally comfortable kissing and telling. When On Demand Entertainment asked her about what it was kissing Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street," Robbie said, "He's great. He's so professional that he never makes anything feel weird on set. It's just easy." But while she found their smooch satisfactory, it was a kiss with another actor that received a rave review from Robbie. 

When KISS FM UK asked her to reveal the identity of the most skilled kisser she's worked with, one guy she's planted a wet one on, her "Babylon" co-star, Diego Calva, was seated beside her. But Robbie didn't stroke his ego. Instead, she revealed that her "Terminal" castmate, Max Irons, has earned the honor of boasting that he's a better kisser than the star of "The Man in the Iron Mask." Said Robbie, "I remember thinking — I was like, 'He's a fantastic kisser.'"

Robbie also locked lips with Brad Pitt in "Babylon," but she told E! News that their kiss wasn't in the script. When she suggested the addition to director Damien Chazelle, he questioned her motives, suspecting that she didn't have enhancing the movie's artistic merit in mind. "I was like, 'Oh, so sue me. This opportunity might never come up again,'" Robbie confessed. Of the kiss itself, the actor said, "It was just great." But now, Pitt is just another guy who couldn't quite meet the high standard set by Irons.

When Judy Greer appeared on "Conan" in 2017, she was surprised with a montage of her on-screen make-outs with actors, including Ashton Kutcher, David Duchovny, Gerard Butler, George Clooney, and Lily Tomlin. The latter two got the biggest reactions from Conan O'Brien's audience, and when Greer appeared on "Watch What Happens Live" in 2022, she revealed that Tomlin tops the Cloon when it comes to their kissing capabilities. "I kissed her in a movie that I love, called 'Grandma.' ... And I have to say, she has very soft lips," Greer said.

Greer often plays the bestie of lead characters in rom-coms, such as "27 Dresses," "13 Going on 30," and "The Wedding Planner." On "Conan," she explained that being a go-to actor for supporting roles is why her list of lip locks with A-listers is so long. "I think that sometimes when you're the lead of the movie, you kiss the one guy," she said. But when you're a spunky supporting character, all bets are off.

Greer even has experience filming a motion-capture kiss for "War for the Planet of the Apes." She told People that she and her on-screen partner, Andy Serkis, had to wear cameras in front of their faces, which made filming the scene awkward. "I had a split second in my brain in the back part where I'm like, 'I'm pretending to be an ape right now, kissing my ape husband. Like, what's happening?'" she recalled.

Vivica A. Fox and Will Smith's characters celebrated surviving an alien invasion by passionately making out in "Independence Day, and their efforts earned them the best kiss title at the 1997 MTV Movie Awards. However, according to Fox, her kisses with "The Best Man" star Morris Chestnut were the best she's ever filmed by far. Chestnut and Fox first worked together on the television series "Out All Night" and reunited for the 2001 romantic comedy "Two Can Play That Game." Speaking to The Herald-Times, Chestnut said of Fox, "I never got to kiss her on the sitcom. But now in this movie, I'm just kissing her all over the place. I love this acting thing."

But for Fox, the amount of intimate scenes she and Chestnut were required to shoot wasn't nearly enough. Two decades after their movie's release, she told the Daily Mail that no co-star had matched Chestnut's kissing prowess. "They had to yell cut several times for me to get up off of that one," she said. "I mean he kisses you ... you're like, 'Whoa, okay.'"

Will was Fox's second-favorite leading man to lock lips with, but she told Entertainment Weekly that their characters' sobbing made it difficult for her to savor their smooch. Will's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, gave Fox some advice to make it easier to film. "She said, 'Oh, honey, load up on the Binaca and dive in!' And we did," Fox recalled.