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Ethan Embry: Kissing Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can’t Hardly Wait Was “Uncomfortable,” She Gave Me a “Big Basket of Breath Mints!”

Ethan Embry: Kissing Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can't Hardly Wait Was "Uncomfortable," She Gave Me a "Big Basket of Breath Mints!" 1999
Ethan Embry and Jennifer Love Hewitt in ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’, 1999. Darren Michaels/Columbia Tristar/Kobal/Shutterstock

He got the girl — and plenty of breath mints — during that wild high school party back in 1998! Ethan Embry dished about his not-so-fun kissing scenes with Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can’t Hardly Wait, and more during a Reddit AMA on Thursday, May 28.

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Embry, 36, and Hewitt, on the heels of her Party of Five fame, played Preston Meyers and Amanda Beckett, respectively, in the fan favorite comedy flick. Their first smooch was a memorable one for viewers, but not necessarily for the actors.

Ethan Embry: Kissing Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can't Hardly Wait Was "Uncomfortable," She Gave Me a "Big Basket of Breath Mints!" full cast
‘Can’t Hardly Wait!’ Cast. Darren Michaels/Columbia Tristar/Kobal/Shutterstock

“The day we did the kissing scene at the end of the movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt, she got me this really big basket of breath mints, and a stuffed teddy bear, because she — pretty much everybody knew — I passed most of my time smoking massive bong rips in my trailer,” Embry said. “She didn’t want to make out with a skunk-scented chimney. I used the breath mints. They were rather nice cottonmouth alleviators.”

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Embry teased that getting intimate with the sexy star is just a “white actor problem,” and that (shocker!) kissing her was pretty awkward. “She’s too pretty, and I was in a relationship,” he explained. “So it was really uncomfortable.”

Long before the “Mandy” days, Embry also starred in Tom Hanks‘ 1996 feel-good movie That Thing You Do! as T.B. Player, aka The Bass Player from The Wonders. Audiences never found out what his character’s name really was, so the star came up with one himself.

Ethan Embry: Kissing Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can't Hardly Wait Was "Uncomfortable," She Gave Me a "Big Basket of Breath Mints!" That thing you do cast
‘That Thing you Do!’ cast. Mark Seliger/20th Century Fox/Clinica Estetico/Kobal/Shutterstock

“I always thought it was Tobias.” He joked: “I think he probably got shot in the ass. That’s right, because he received a Purple Heart, didn’t he? So he lived! I’m alive! I didn’t die! I can be in THAT THING YOU DID!”

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Embry doesn’t just take on clean-cut roles though. For some, he’s perhaps best known for playing music store employee Mark in 1995’s Empire Records. And yes, those pot brownies were real!

“It was my last day of shooting. I think that was my last scene. So they were real. And potent,” he said. Even more? He was high “about 99.9 percent” of the time while filming! (“Shoplifter!”)

“I don’t think that they will ever try to remake it, or reboot it, because it’s not an industry success? It’s a fan favorite,” Embry went on to say. “The industry could care less about it. It never made any money. It lost money. And I actually think that the vast majority of Hollywood is oblivious to what it became.”

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Ethan Embry: Kissing Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can't Hardly Wait Was "Uncomfortable," She Gave Me a "Big Basket of Breath Mints!" Empire records cast
The cast of ‘Empire Records”. Monarchy/Regency/Kobal/Shutterstock

He continued: “I was oblivious to what it became, until last year. They had a screening for it, out here in Los Angeles, they screened EMPIRE RECORDS and it sold out faster than it’s ever sold out, and it was crazy-packed, and that was the first time I realized that it’s sort of a classic.” (Embry also stopped by Brooklyn’s Rough Trade last month for their Rex Manning Day-inspired festivities to honor the film’s 20th anniversary.)

Embry currently appears on Netflix’s new smash hit Grace and Frankie, but he’s just as grateful for his past. “I’m the luckiest dude ever! And I think it means more to me now that these films are still remembered. It means more to me now than they did when they happened. Because when they happened, I was just doing what I did,” he said. “And now, that they’re still thought of and remembered and a part of people’s lives means a lot to me because it validates what I was doing when I was younger. It’s pretty nice. It feels really good.”

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