It’s impossible to become a beloved Hallmark star without being willing to pucker up for at least one highly anticipated kiss to cap off each movie. In EntertainmentNow’s KISS & TELL series, Hallmark’s biggest stars give us the scoop on the most memorable on-set smooches of their careers.
For beloved actor Paul Campbell, who’s starred in over 20 Hallmark movies since 2015, those kissing scenes took a long time to get used to. The “Christmas at the Catnip Café” star admitted to EntertainmentNow that for the first 15 years of his career, “every kiss” made him nervous.
Paul Campbell Recalls His 1st Onscreen Kiss Being Highly ‘Nerve-Wracking’
GettyCampbell’s first on-screen kiss was on an episode of “Battlestar Galactica” in 2003, just as his acting career was getting started.
“It was with Candace McClure,” he told EntertainmentNow. “She played one of the young pilots, and I was the nerdy Assistant to the President of the World. I think I’d been acting for maybe a year, and it was in the mini-series of that show that was my first on-screen kiss. It was a good one, too. It was kind of steamy!”
Noting that he was a “very young 24,” Campbell, who’s now 46, said he still remembers the anxiety he felt about “doing it right.”
“It’s really nerve-wracking because imagine suddenly analyzing how you kiss,” he explained. “You’re like, ‘Oh, wait, do I know how to do this? What are my lips doing?’ And then you start to think, because kissing is something we do unconsciously it should be (easy), but I remember thinking like, ‘What does this even look like? Am I do I look cool? Am I doing it right?’ It’s just like this death spiral.”
Paul Campbell Adorably Admits He’s ‘Not Casanova’
HallmarkThose nerves didn’t wear off for Campbell after that first onscreen kiss. The “Three Wisest Men” star and screenwriter told EntertainmentNow that “to be honest, I think for the first 15 years of my career, I was kind of nervous about every kiss.”
“I never loved that part of it,” he admitted. “I would always get a little nervous. I always felt a little self-conscious. You know, I was not — I’m not Casanova, you know? I was never that guy.”
Whenever Campbell would get cast in “really confident leading men roles,” where his characters were supposed to have “swagger,” the actor told EntertainmentNow that he needed to figure out what he had in common with those characters to embody their confidence.
“I would always have to find sort of a hook or a way into it,” he said. “Like, what was the broken piece of that person that I could relate to? What’s the nerdy thing they do at home? Because if I had to go do (a movie) like Brad Pitt ‘Fight Club,’ I couldn’t do it. I didn’t feel confident. So I always struggled, I would say, wotj every kiss for the first 15 years.”
Flexing his biceps, Campbell then joked, “Now I’m just like, ‘Bring it on! I’m so masculine!”
Paul Campbell Says His Onscreen Kisses Are ‘Pretty Authentically Me’
HallmarkKissing on set is far from romantic, with countless crew members watching and cameras recording every angle, Campbell told EntertainmentNow. However, he and his co-star still need to create an intimate moment.
“The intention is not deeply romantic, but the mechanics are the same,” he explained. “You’re not, like, kissing out of an authentically romantic, intimate place, but there’s intimacy in that moment. And I don’t suddenly kiss as the character. The way I’m kissing is just the way I kiss, right? I don’t know how to kiss any other way.”
Hilariously, Campbell then quipped, “Like, I’m not thinking (about the character), ‘This guy’s a biter, you know, all teeth!’ No, you just kind of go in and kiss. It’s pretty authentically me, so don’t judge!”
