By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
There are many reasons why fans like Buffy the Vampire Slayer so much going on, from compelling characters to eminently quotable dialogue. And, of course, all the great romances fueled by some of the hottest on-screen chemistry in network television history. For many, there was no greater chemistry than that between Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, but their steamiest scenes weren’t as sexy during production for an extremely strange reason: whenever Buffy and Angel shared a kiss, their breath was absolutely awful because of Gellar’s senseless pranks.
Bad Romance
This bizarre ritual between Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz dates back to their first Buffy kiss in the season 1 episode “Angel”. In an unforgettable moment, Angel reveals his feelings to Buffy and kisses her… leading to the revelation that he is a vampire in love with the Slayer who has been accused of hunting and killing his kind. But thanks to Joss Whedon’s DVD commentary, we know that the scene was just as unforgettable for the actors for a very different reason: “They both ate as many horrible things as they could before kissing, just to have fun.”
While Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz both tried to prank each other during this premiere Buffy kiss, it was apparently Gellar who kept this tradition going whenever they had to be physically intimate together on screen. Her explicit goal (sorry, shippers) was to make their sexy scenes as “unsexy” as possible, and the main way she accomplished this was by eating weird stuff before the on-screen kissing started. This included nasty combinations like pickles and fish that guaranteed his breath smelled worse than a vampire’s coffin before Buffy and Angel locked lips.
More than bad breath
Sometimes Sarah Michelle Gellar didn’t just sabotage her breathing before a Buffy and Angel kiss and opted for other hilarious pranks instead. A good example of this is her deliberately pinning her clothes very tightly on herself before scenes where their characters were supposed to get hot and heavy. Poor David Boreanaz would have to make sure that their on-screen intimacy was still both naughty and enjoyable while making out with a partner whose clothes were stuck together very rigidly.
On another occasion, Sarah Michelle Gellar decided to prank David Boreanaz on his own show with a prank in the Angel episode “I’ll Remember You”, where Buffy and Angel did a lot more than a kiss. This was an episode in which the vampire was transformed into a human, allowing him and Buffy to finally do the deed without him losing his soul. Unfortunately, he discovers that the world needs his vampiric strength and goes back in time to become a creature of the night again. It’s a powerful and moving episode, until you learn that Gellar deliberately spilled ice cream on Boreanaz while trying to ruin one of his shots.
It might spoil the magic to learn that Sarah Michelle Gellar tried to ruin every Buffy kissing Angel with bad breath and other pranks, but there is a positive side to this particular story. All the pranks actually helped the two actors bond, and they continued to go out and have fun even after Boreanaz started starring in Bone. He invited her onto the set so they could snack on artisan services together, which might never have happened if Gellar hadn’t decided to snack on the world. the nastiest food before making out with one of the hottest guys on TV.
