Sorry to any of my former partners, but for most of my younger life, I was convinced I was kissing wrong.
It’s not because of a lack of chemistry, skill, or enjoyment (most of the time, anyway). It just didn’t look anything like what I saw in the movies.
In fact, it took me wayyy longer than I’d like to admit to realise that most on-screen smooches are something called a stage kiss.
In an X (formerly Twitter) post from last year, site user @everyforkedroad commented on a viral post saying the stars of A Good Day to be a Dog were “eating each other” during a passionate kissing scene.
“Most actors give stage kisses (one goes for the upper lip, one for the bottom),” they wrote.
Is that standard?
Well, intimacy coordinator-choreographer Laura Rikard writes in her blog that “For all in-class scene work, I have a closed mouth kissing policy.”
A lot of on-screen kisses don’t involve tongue, which might be why they look so different to real-life ones.
This is a good way for actors to maintain boundaries, though “Regardless, [actors should] brush [their] teeth,” Rikard says.
Acting magazine Backstage adds that there are many different ways of convincing audiences you’ve had a full-on snog when you really haven’t.
For the first method, “one actor cups the other’s face in a way that appears natural and romantic before drawing them in. Right before they connect, the former places their thumb over the latter’s lips so that no direct mouth-to-mouth contact occurs.”
Secondly, the director “can position you in relation to the audience in a way that disguises what’s going on up close,” and you can also cut the lights or perform another intimate act like hugging.
If you must go in for the smooch, however, all actors have their own methods ― and a top-lip-bottom-lip method is a good way to feign passion without having to be too open-mouthed about it all.
So yes, stage kisses are real; and they look odd because, TBH, they’re usually pretty weird to do.