Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson's Hunger Games Kiss Was A Mess
Throughout the "Hunger Games" franchise, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark's (Josh Hutcherson) relationship is rockier than your typical teen romance. It is, at times, one-sided, and with leering sponsors watching from afar, it's also full of deceit and manipulation for the sake of self-preservation. That's just how the cookie crumbles in a televised fight to the death.
Katniss and Peeta smooch on more than one occasion over the course of the four films, and the kisses range from audience-appeasing to awkward to genuinely passionate. According to Lawrence and Hutcherson, one in 2013's "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" was not particularly pleasant. In an appearance on "Live! with Kelly and Michael," Hutcherson recalled the kiss, which took place after Peeta nearly died colliding with a forcefield.
"It was very slobbery," Hutcherson said. "It was right after Peeta had been knocked down and it wasn't looking too good for him." Emotions were running high, he recalled, and the kiss was a tear-filled event, among other, uh, facial emissions. "So, she was upset, she was crying, and when she was crying there was fluid here." The actor paused to point to his face. "And then when we kissed it was just fluid." It helped that the two were buddies. "Because we're such good friends it made it... less awkward."
Sam Claflin was in on the mess
Jennifer Lawrence made her own "Live! With Kelly and Michael" appearance to confirm her co-star's assessment of their "Hunger Games" kiss, but she did make one clarification. "Well, that can be explained," the actress began. "[Peeta] was getting CPR before we kissed, so most of that drool belonged to Sam Claflin." Indeed, when Peeta accidentally machetes the forcefield, the electric shock causes his heart to stop. Finnick, played by Claflin, steps in to perform CPR and saves Peeta's life, at which point Peeta and Katniss lock lips.
Lawrence did admit that some of those facial fluids were her doing. "I was crying. It was an emotional scene, so I'm snotting," Lawrence said. The actress couldn't resist expounding on the kiss' grosser qualities. "On my phone, I have a video of the longest snot string you've ever seen," she continued. "It was unbreakable. Even when I was [coughing], and it was blowing and moving, it would not break. It was made of, like, Spider-Man webs. So strong." It goes without saying that Lawrence sapped any romance from the passionate scene. "Josh and I love kissing," she joked. "It's super sexy."
In fact, Lawrence made a point of making all the "Hunger Games" kisses as unromantic as possible. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Liam Hemsworth revealed that Lawrence would purposefully eat pungent foods like tuna and garlic before any of their kissing scenes.