Angelina Jolie Once Slapped Her ‘Changeling’ Co-Star for Kissing Her in an Improvised Scene
Angelina Jolie is used to being intimate with other actors in her films. But her Changeling co-star once decided to go off script when kissing the megastar, which resulted in Jolie giving a very surprising reaction.
The actor who considered Angelina Jolie his favorite on-screen kisser
Jolie has seen herself make out with several on-screen co-stars over the years, and they’ve all had varying reactions to locking lips with the Oscar-winner. Her Alexander cast-mate Val Kilmer was so excited about it he couldn’t help mention it in his book.
“I couldn’t wait to kiss Angie, buy her a Gulfstream jet and have a V+J painted in rainbow glory on the tail,” he wrote in his book I’m Your Huckleberry (via Yahoo).“She had recently adopted her first child, Maddox, and the paparazzi were obsessed with this postmodern Madonna, the perfect picture of unapproachable stardom and impossibly chic maternal instinct.”
Whereas actors such as James McAvoy considered kissing the megastar a bit awkward and uncomfortable. But Jolie’s Taking Lives partner Ethan Hawke didn’t share the same sentiment. When it came to kissing Jolie, he ranked her as the best.
“With all due respect — the woman has been in the press a lot lately — but I will say, the best onscreen [kiss] I ever had was [with] Angelina Jolie,” Hawke once said on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen (via Us Weekly).
When Hawke was asked what made Jolie such a great kisser, the superstar didn’t hold back.
“Pillowy lips, a lot of tongue,” he said. “Why is Amadeus, Wolfgang Mozart, a genius? Angelina Jolie was born to whittle men, to make them weak. When she kisses you, you don’t know your name.”
Angelina Jolie slapped her ‘Changeling’ co-star after he unexpectedly kissed her in an unscripted scene
Jolie added another name to the list of her on-screen kisses in her film Changeling. But what might have made her Changeling kiss different from some others was that it was an improvised scene she didn’t see coming.
Jolie starred alongside theater actor Jason Butler Harner in the Clint Eastwood-directed project. Harner wanted to add something a little extra to an already intense scene he shared with the Tomb Raider star. But he made sure to run his idea by Eastwood first without letting Jolie in on the improvisation at all.
“I try to be selective with my improvising,” Harner once told MTV News (via Female First). “I had talked to Angelina at the beginning of the day. We had a big scene, and we’re supposed to be coming out of our corners, so it was a ‘How do we do this?’ Clint approved [of the kiss]. He said he could see it happening and he said, ‘Do it and we’ll see what happens.’”
What happened was that Jolie reacted violently to the scene, but it instantly clicked for the actor what Harner’s intentions were. The two would use the intensity of that interaction for the film.
“She slapped me and she held me and she hit me and it was great,” Harner said. “She totally went with it. She’s really smart. She’s beautiful, but she’s really smart, and she’s a great actress.”
How Angelina Jolie felt about kissing Brad Pitt’s good friend in a film
In 2006, Jolie co-starred alongside Matt Damon in the feature film The Good Shepard. But unlike some of her other on-screen partners, Damon was good friends with Jolie’s partner at the time Brad Pitt. This left some wondering if Pitt and Damon’s friendship created a little discomfort when it came to the latter’s fictional intimacy with Jolie.
Although Damon felt it was weird kissing Jolie, Jolie asserted that their familiarity made the scenario less daunting for all parties.
“In reality both the people we’re involved with couldn’t have cared less about that because they know us,” Jolie once said on Good Morning America. “You know, it’s one of those things where it’s like the least threatening person. … You know, good luck to you guys, I hope it’s not too awkward.”
