Cruel Intentions EPs on Changing the Movie’s Iconic Kiss Pairing: ‘It Made A Lot of Sense’ for Caroline and [Spoiler]
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Cruel Intentions Episode 4. Proceed at your own risk!
For a certain age group (that shall not be dated), there’s two memorable MTV Movie Award winners for Best Kiss that immediately come to mind: Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams’ rain-soaked The Notebook smooch, and Cruel Intentions’ infamous lip-lock between Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair’s characters.
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Twenty-five years later, Prime Video’s series-take on Cruel Intentions is recreating that latter iconic kiss between Kathryn and Cecile. This time around, however, Kathryn’s TV counterpart, Caroline (played by Sarah Catherine Hook), is sharing that moment not with the show’s version of Cecile, but with Annie (Savannah Lee Smith), the young woman at the center of the bet between Caroline and her step-brother Lucien (Zac Burgess).
During a sorority event in which each pledge shared a secret, Annie opened up about how inexperienced and broken she feels. After Annie confessed that she’s 18 years old and never kissed anyone, Caroline — who’s intent on getting Annie to join her sorority — leaned over and planted one on the other girl. “You were perfect,” Caroline assured Annie afterward.
Changing up the pairing for the noteworthy scene “just made sense for our version of the story, and for our characters, where they are in their journeys at that point in the series,” co-showrunner Phoebe Fisher explains. “It made a lot of sense to have that moment and that kiss between Caroline and Annie, because it really speaks to both of their emotional and tactical goals at that moment.”
Co-showrunner Sara Goodman notes that the series isn’t a moment-for-moment remake of the movie. Instead, “that kiss is a shout-out that fits into what’s happening in our show between our characters,” she says. “And so, anything we did that are Easter eggs or shout-outs like that had to feel organic to what was really happening in the show, and we didn’t want to drop those things in just for either shock value or just because they were in the movie.”
With Cece being sexually experienced in the series and Annie’s revelation that she’s never been kissed, “it was a natural fit for that kiss to happen between [Annie and Caroline], and not between the Cece and Caroline characters,” Goodman adds.
As a fan of the 1999 film, Hook was “so glad” that the lip-lock was included in the show “because I feel like that’s one of the most talked-about scenes from the original movie,” the actress says. “I was happy to have that little nod in there.”
When it came time to shoot the smooch, though, “I think, honestly, Savannah and I were a little nervous,” Hook shares, “because we were told, like, maybe a couple nights before we were going to film that that they wanted us to fully recreate that make-out. And we were kind of told before that that it would just be, like, a first kiss, like a peck.”
Smith, too, recalls being “excited” and “nervous” because of how iconic the moment is in the movie, and the pressure was on to pay proper homage to it.
“I remember getting to set that day, and Sara pulled me, and she was like, ‘OK, I know you’ve seen this a million times, but let’s watch it together again,’ and we were just watching them kiss. And she’s like, ‘So, you see this vibe,'” Smith describes, adding that the creative team and intimacy coordinator helped her feel comfortable and safe during filming.
In the end, Hook was “very proud” of the final product. “I feel like we got to a great place with it,” she says, “and I hope that fans of the movie will be happy to see that being recreated, but a little bit different.”
But one cast member was not so thrilled with the scene’s new pairing: “Sara Silva, who plays Cece [in the series], when she read that, she was like, ‘That’s supposed to be me!'” Hook shares with a laugh. “She felt, like, totally betrayed, and she was like, ‘OK, well, we’ll get our chance, hopefully, in Season 2.'”
What did you think of the show’s take on the infamous kiss? Hit the comments!
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