‘I snogged somebody for nine hours today’: Stage Kiss actors reveal what it’s really like kissing a co-star

MyAnna Buring and Patrick Kennedy in ‘Stage Kiss’ at the Hampstead Theatre - (Helen Murray)

In any other profession, kissing your co-worker hundreds of times a day would be an HR issue – but in the world of acting, it’s often a job requirement.

Actors have been kissing one another on stage for centuries, and most have kept it strictly professional, but many famously haven’t. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fell in love while playing a married couple in Mr & Mrs Smith; Elizabeth Taylor’s head was turned by future husband Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra. What exactly happens if that onstage chemistry turns into a full-blown affair?