Matt Damon humorously recounted a less than pleasant onscreen kissing experience with Scarlett Johansson while filming the 2011 family comedy “We Bought A Zoo.” During a conversation with his co-star Emily Blunt about shooting kissing scenes, Damon jokingly complained about having to kiss Johansson, and they both playfully bantered about the experience.
According to Damon, they filmed a kissing scene before lunch, but after the break, they had to film another kiss. Unbeknownst to Damon, Johansson had eaten an onion sandwich during lunch, leading to an awkward situation during the intimate scene. Johansson realized her mistake and jokingly asked Damon if he was still attracted to her despite her bad breath.
“I had to kiss Scarlett Johansson — can you imagine how horrible that was for me?
Can you imagine how awful that was?” Blunt quipped. “It’s such a shame she has such terrible lips and everything. It must have been so awful.
“It was hell!” the “Saving Private Ryan” actor said with a laugh.
He continued, “What happened was, we did a shot before lunch, and it was this nice little two-shot that ended in the kiss. And it was really good.”
“We went to lunch, and she and I both thought it was over, and she ate like an onion sandwich for lunch,” Damon remembered.
She came in, and [director] Cameron Crowe had set the camera up, and it was like a tight shot of the kiss,” the Massachusetts native recalled. “And she goes ‘Aw s—! She goes, ’I literally just had, I had like an onion sandwich. I thought we did this.”
No, I was making fun of her that entire time about her onion breath, which I didn’t even smell,” Damon said.
“Her breath smells like roses,” Damon insisted as the pair burst into laughter.
The two actors had fun teasing each other about the incident, with Damon playfully making fun of Johansson’s onion breath. Ultimately, they had a good laugh about it, and Damon insisted that her breath smelled like roses, not onions.
“We Bought A Zoo” is a family comedy loosely based on Benjamin Mee’s novel of the same name. In the film, Damon played a widower and father who moves his family to a house that also includes a dilapidated zoo. As he works to renovate and reopen the zoo with the help of Johansson’s character, he finds himself falling in love with her.
Currently, Matt Damon stars in the historical drama “Oppenheimer,” directed by Christopher Nolan, alongside co-star Emily Blunt. The film premiered with a successful opening at the box office, adding to Damon’s impressive list of movie accomplishments.
