Pucker up! Sarah Michelle Gellar looked back at her Cruel Intentions kiss with Selma Blair, revealing that it is a strong contender for her top onscreen smooch.
“Selma’s a great kisser,” Gellar, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, February 9. “I mean, I’ll tell you, it’s just soft [lips]. She smells great.”
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star added: “Kissing a girl on camera is way better because when you kiss a guy, all your makeup rubs off and then in between you have to get these touch-ups. But [when] it’s a girl it’s, like, you’re good to go.”
Gellar played mean girl Kathryn Merteuil in the 1999 cult classic, while Blair, 48, portrayed Cecile Caldwell. In one of the most iconic scenes in the film, Kathryn teaches Cecile how to kiss in the park in order to win over her music teacher, Ronald Clifford (Sean Patrick Thomas).
The Ringer alum said that she was “all for it” when she first read the script for the memorable moment, recalling a “great story” about filming it. She said they shot in Central Park in New York City in the spring, remembering that “it was the first nice day in weeks.”
The weather made it so “everybody” went to Central Park and instead of the average 20 or 30 bystanders on a “normal shooting day,” Gellar said there were “hundreds” watching.
“It was a wonderful day,” she recalled. “And then we had ice cream. Very nice.”
The Scooby-Doo actress told Us that she knew the movie would be “iconic,” but she wasn’t prepared for how that scene would be received.
“Obviously, we knew people would be excited by it, but I read that script and I was so desperate to be a part of it,” Gellar said. “And I’ve loved it forever. I’ve seen every iteration, every Broadway version.”
The I Know What You Did Last Summer star revealed she was supportive of the material because, “I thought [it] was so mature for a younger audience, that [filmmakers] were finally getting that we didn’t need to be talked down to. That it was about actually [how] we were capable of understanding so much more.”
More than 30 years later, Gellar admitted that she recreates the kissing scene with Blair, who is her longtime friend, “all the time.”
Outside of acting, the mother of two, who is married to Freddie Prinze Jr., recently teamed up with Subaru to raise money for families struggling with hunger for Feeding America amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think that this is an extremely hard time for everybody, myself included, but when you hear statistics, like, one in four children don’t know where their next meal is coming from, that’s frightening,” Gellar told Us on Tuesday. “No child should ever have to worry about food and, and it’s a basic human, right?”
She explained that donating $1 puts 10 meals on someone’s table. To learn more about Subaru’s Feeding America initiative — the company is donating 100 million meals to in February — click here.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
