Problematic On-Screen Kisses Between Child Stars Much-Older Actors
Something about a kissing scene and your favorite show or movie, with your favorite characters, just gets you into all the romance vibes. Hollywood makes exceptional on-screen matchups, but sometimes, or really way too often, there’s a significant problem with the on-screen mashups that need to be talked about: how, for some reason, people are casting literal children to play the love interest of an adult, and even have them kiss on screen.
You may be thinking to yourselves, “Oh, it must not happen that much.” But it does. if we’ve learned anything from the documentary series Quiet on Set, which highlighted the stories of child stars who were prayed upon by producers of Nickelodeon, it’s that child actors really aren’t protected in Hollywood as much as they should be.
There are quite a few iconic, beloved movies, that we can’t really watch the same again after we realize the intense age gap between the actors. For instance, Emmy Rossum, who was only 17, had to kiss Gerard Butler, who was 33, and Patrick Wilson, who was 30, in The Phantom of the Opera.
There were incidents on Pretty Little Liars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gossip Girl, and even the short-lived Netflix show, Everything Sucks!
Now, we’re not going to list every single time there was a romantic matchup on screen between a child star and an adult because we’d be here all day, but we are going to highlight the times that there was both that, and it went as far as the child star and the adult kissing on screen.
Below, see the problematic on-screen kisses between child stars and much older actors.
Content warning: this article touches on inappropriate conduct involving a minor.
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Dean Butler (23) & Melissa Gilbert (15)
Another TV show kiss with a disturbing age gap was between Dean Butler, who was 23 years old, and Melissa Gilbert, who was 15 years old at the time of their first on-screen kiss for Little House on the Prairie.
In an April 3, 2024 interview with People, Butler talked about how he wished they were closer in age.
“When I met Melissa in ‘Back to School,’ there was no sign of a woman there. She really was a little girl: bright, incredibly capable, spunky, vibrant, very extroverted,” he said. “Now, I don’t know how much more of a woman there was there at the end, but she was being asked to go there at the end of that season. And I think she did it amazingly well when you look at how little life experience she had.”
He added, “I think that there was anxiety on both sides of that kiss and how is this going to go? But we stepped up to it. I’ve often said to Melissa, ‘I wish we could have been a little closer in age when we were doing this.’ But that’s not the way it really happened. Laura was 10 years younger than Almanzo. But from the perspective of playing it, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could have [had] … a little more common ground, so we would’ve been able to play the loving side of this in perhaps a little bit more interesting way.”
In Dean’s memoir Prairie Man: My Little House Life & Beyond, he claimed that Gilbert’s mother, Barbara Abeles, stopped the kiss when she started sobbing on set seeing this.
In the book, he wrote, “It was totally unexpected. This kind of outburst just didn’t happen on our set;” later discovering that she didn’t approve of the age gap, per DailyMail.
Mila Kunis (14) & Ashton Kutcher (20)
Despite Mila Kunis being only 14, they still made her character, Jackie, frequently kiss Ashton Kutcher’s character, Kelso, even though the actor was 20. Instead of working around this, they made Kunis have her first kiss on screen, and according to her, they gave her a bunch of perfume to calm her nerves?
In a 2001 interview with People via EOnline, Kunis said the producers gave her some perfume. “I totally perfumed myself and I was like, ‘Hey, I feel better about myself.'” And in the same year, Kutcher talked about how he got “butterflies” over the idea of kissing Kunis.
“I was so nervous. She acted so cool. She seemed as if she’d done it a thousand times. I was the one with the butterflies in my stomach,” Ashton said. “I mean, here’s this little girl and I have to kiss her. It was nerve-racking.”
Per StyleCaster, Kutcher made a lot of comments about the age gap, including talking about how co-star and convicted rapist Danny Masterson bet him money to “french kiss” Kunis when she was 14.
Kirsten Dunst (12) & Brad Pitt (31)
In Interview with the Vampire, Kirsten Dunst and Brad Pitt kissed, even though Dunst was a literal child. While they’re supposed to be campires, and are older than they are in the show, that’s not the case in real life; and Dunst had her first kiss with Pitt.
In 2021, Kirsten told Vanity Fair that she hated doing that and while she was “treated like a total princess on set,” she struggled with the scene. “That was the worst thing I did and also having obviously to kiss Brad Pitt at that point. I was a little girl and he was like a brother to me and it was very weird even though it was a peck. I was very not into it.”
Nicole Kidman (36) & Cameron Bright (10)
The 2004 film Birth was about a woman, played by Nicole Kidman who believes a 10-year-old boy, played by Cameron Bright, was the reincarnation of her dead husband. There was a kissing scene, and it was truly nauseating.
Kidman addressed the kiss, via ABC, saying, “It wasn’t about, ‘Oh I want to make a film where I get to kiss a 10-year-old boy’. To me it was I wanted to make a film where you’re trying to understand love.”
Sydney Sweeney (20) & Peyton Kennedy (14)
In the short-lived Netflix show, Everything Sucks, Sydney Sweeney, who was 20 at the time, and Peyton Kennedy, who was 14 at the time, played love interests. Their characters were learning about their sexualities, and in one of the last scenes of the show, the two were making out. While they were supposed to be playing high schoolers of a similar age, their age gap in real life instantly made fans uncomfortable, per PopBuzz.
It seems neither has commented on this.
Allie DiMeco (14) & Jake Hertzog (~30)
Naked Brothers Band alum Allie DiMeco recently opened up about how Nickelodeon producers forced her to kiss a 30-year-old man on the show when she was 14 years old, a man named Jake Hertzog.
She said on a TikTok video, “He’s a 30-year-old man. I’m sorry, I couldn’t even watch [the clip]. It gives me f-cking the ick and it honestly gives me PTSD. I’m watching this ‘Quiet on Set’ documentary and it’s talking about how integral and vital it is to create — especially when it’s a kid cast — to create an environment where kids feel comfortable to say ‘No’ or ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this.'”
She added, “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, maybe they do express that though, it’s also more important to create an environment that listens to the kids and actually does not make them do things when they don’t want to do them.’ They made me kiss this 30-plus-year-old man when I was like, what, 14, 15? I told them many times that I didn’t want to do it. My mom was very against it and they pretty much made me feel like I was going to lose my job, that I might be fired if I didn’t do it.”
Alexa Demie (28) & Sunny Suljic (11)
In the movie MID90s, Sunny Suljic’s character has his first sexual encounter with Alexa Demie’s character, and they end up kissing on screen. At the time, Suljic was 11, and Demie was 28.
In a previous interview with Dazed, Demie talked about the kiss. “I had a lot of anxiety about that (at first) because obviously there’s somewhat of an age difference between Sunny and I. But he is just so cool and it felt very comfortable and safe, and after thinking about it… There’s no way I didn’t want to be a part of it,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to do a film that was set in (another) time – that felt like a dream, you know?”
Erm, those comments didn’t go over well, to say the least.
Keira Knightley (17) & Orlando Bloom (25) (& Johnny Depp (40))
In the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, in 2003, many may not know that Keira Knightley was 17 and Orlando Bloom was 25 when they kissed on screen. Along with that, Knightley had to kiss Johnny Depp, who was literally 40.
Tom Skerritt (58) & Drew Barrymore (17)
The 1992 movie PoisonIvy was about a girl named Ivy, played by Drew Barrymore, who is a psychopath that seduces Darryl Skerritt, who is played by Tom Skerritt, to be a part of her best friend’s family. Their characters have sex multiple times in the movie, and the actors kissed on screen, despite Barrymore being 17 and Skerritt being 58.
While there was kissing on screen, they did use body doubles for the explicit scenes, per Yahoo, and Skeritt reportedly told the director how uncomfortable he was with this numerous times.
Bill Murray (52) & Scarlett Johansson (17)
In the film Lost in Translation, it’s about a man and a woman trying to figure out their lives, and form a bond while in Tokyo. Bill Murray allegedly improvised the kiss scene between him and Scarlett Johansson, despite their 35 year age difference, per Daily Beast.
Jeremy Irons (48) & Dominique Swain (16)
Stars James Mason and Sue Lyon were paired together in the controversial 1962 film Lolita, which was about a middle-aged professor falling for a literal child. Fast forward to 1997, and they remade the film with Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain, who had an over 30-year age gap.
Unlike the 1962 one, the 1997 adaptation had numerous kissing scenes between the two stars. She was chosen to star in the film at 15, began filming at 16, and the film was released in 1997.
Taylor Momsen (15) & Chace Crawford (23)
If you’re a Gossip Girl fan, then chances are you remember the episode where Chace Crawford and Taylor Momsen kissed, despite Momsen being only 15. They actually later started dating rumors after being seen kissing at a party, but they both denied the accusation, per Nicki Swift.
Hilary Duff (15) & Chad Michael Murray (22)
Did you know that in the film A Cinderella Story, Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray kissed, even though she was only 15 and he was 22?!
Duff later talked about the crush she had on him, and how he took her out to coffee to break the ice? She told all of this to Comspolitan back in 2016.
Selena Gomez (16) & Drew Seeley (26)
What is up with the problematic Cinderella stories? Because in Another Cinderella Story, Selena Gomez and Drew Seeley kissed, despite her being 16 and he being 26. And to avoid the kiss being more, Gomez ate pickles, something Seeley hated.
She told this to EOnline via AceShowbiz, saying, “He hates pickles and I love pickles, so I’d eat some pickles.”
Sasha Pieterse (14) & Ryan Merriman (26)
Sasha Pieterse was only 14 when she did romantic scenes with actor Ryan Merriman, who was 26, during Pretty Little Liars. Not only that, but Pieterse had kissing scenes with Shay Mitchell, who was 21 when she was 13.
Safe to say, we can’t watch Pretty Little Liars the same way.
Jared Leto (22) & Claire Danes (15)
Jared Leto and Claire Danes were on My So-Called Life, and had kissing scene when he was 22 and she was 15. In an interview on the Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard, she talked about how she didn’t enjoy the kiss, and apparently, he didn’t make her feel like anything other than 14 year-old kid.
“No, he was way too old,” she said. “I was way too terrified. It was very fraternal… and he was actually pretty protective of me. I think I made it clear, too, from the beginning that I wasn’t that kind of 14-year-old. I was truly 14.”
Amanda Bynes (16) & Michael McMillian (24)
If you watched What I Like About You, then you remember Amanda Bynes’s major love interests in the show: Henry, Ben, and Vince, but let’s talk about Henry, who was played by Michael McMillian. When their characters dated, and kissed, Bynes was 16 and McMillian was 24.
Keith Carradine (28) & Brooke Shields (11)
One of the most disturbing movies has to be when Brooke Shields was 11 years old, playing a prostitute in the film Pretty Baby and had numerous kissing scenes with 28-year-old actor Keith Carradine.
In an interview with Vogue, her children thought the film was basically “child pornography,” and Shields later talked about her disturbing experiences as a child actor in the documentary of the same name.
Alicia Silverstone (16) & Cary Elwes (30)
Alicia Silverstone’s first major role was in the 1993 film The Crush, where she played a girl obsessed with a journalist who denies her. Silverstone was 16 years old when she kissed Cary Elwes, who was 30, on-screen.
Emmy Rossum (17) & Gerard Butler (33) (& Patrick Wilson (30))
Okay, so The Phantom of the Opera may be a favorite amongst fans, but people get instantly creeped out when they realize Emmy Rossum, who was 17, had to kiss two 30 year old men.
Michael Caine (50) & Michelle Johnson (17)
In Blame It on Rio, leads Michael Caine and Michelle Johnson were 50 and 17 years old, respectively. There were a lot of kissing scenes, and intimate moments; and no one really talks about it.
Chlo? Grace Moretz (16) & Jamie Blackley (22)
Chlo? Grace Moretz and Jamie Blackley played love interests in the film If I Stay, despite her being 16 and he 22.
In an interview with USA Today, she talked about how “awkward” it was to kiss Buckley, saying, “It’s so weird because there’s 400 male crew members and your mom and the director (R.J. Cutler) is telling you how to make out and be passionate.”
She added, “And we (she and Blackley) would just joke and just be so stupid together and be like ‘what are we doing?’ ” she says. “When you don’t have someone who’s super-duper serious about that stuff you’re like, ‘thank god, we can be silly.'”
