Ethan Hawke reveals why he was ‘disappointed’ in his first real-life kiss with Gwyneth Paltrow

Ethan Hawke says his first real-life kiss with Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t live up to expectations, and he’s still thinking about it decades later.

The Oscar-nominated actor admitted he was “disappointed” his first real-life make-out with his “Great Expectations” co-star happened during a game of Truth or Dare.

During Wednesday’s episode of “Today with Jenna & Friends,” the 55-year-old actor revealed his biggest Hollywood regret involved his first kiss with Paltrow, which happened off-screen and not during the filming of their 1998 film.

“I remember, to be honest, I didn’t even say this to her, being disappointed that was my dare because I didn’t want that to be the way. …I  wanted to kiss her, but not in a game,” Hawke said.

“I’m allowed to say that now.”

The candid confession came as Hawke and Paltrow recently reunited to reminisce about their early days together in another interview, where the pair reflected on life — and romance — before smartphones and social media.

“There was about a six-month period where I would run into you at six or seven different places, at somebody’s house, at a play opening, at Corner Bistro or this other bar. It was so much fun. There were no phones,” Hawke told Paltrow in an interview with Vanity Fair.

Hawke went on to pinpoint the exact moment their first kiss took place, a casual, unscripted night that has stuck with him decades later.

“That’s the first time we made out. Do you remember? Truth or Dare at my apartment on Prince Street. What a highlight,” Paltrow said.

Still, Hawke said the setting didn’t live up to the romantic expectations he had built up in his mind.

As he revisited the memory, Hawke emphasized again how he “didn’t want that [kiss] to happen in that stupid game” because he “had different plans for that moment.”

Later in the same interview, Paltrow and Hawke spoke in detail about their experience filming 1998’s “Great Expectations,” including the explicit sex scene she flat-out refused to do.

“Do you remember Alfonso pitching you the love scene?” Hawke asked, referring to the film’s director, Alfonso Cuarón. 

Paltrow replied, “Oh my god,” explaining that Cuarón had wanted to film a scene in which her character received oral sex from Hawke’s character.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, my father’s going to have a heart attack,’” she remembered.

In “Great Expectations,” a modernization of the Charles Dickens classic, Hawke starred as Finn, a painter who was fixated on Paltrow’s Estella.