Rebel Wilson opens up about how first onscreen kiss with a woman ‘changed her love life completely’
Rebel Wilson was initially nervous about kissing her co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg in her new film. (Getty)
Rebel Wilson has opened up about how her first onscreen kiss with a woman helped her explore her sexuality.
The Australian actor, who is moving away from comedy with her first dramatic role in the upcoming film The Almond and The Seahorse, told The Hollywood Reporter that kissing her costar Charlotte Gainsbourg had changed the course of her life.
“I was so nervous. Charlotte Gainsbourg was the first woman I’d ever kissed,” she explained. “I’d never kissed a woman before so I was thinking, ‘Oh God, how’s that going to go?'”
The film follows Sarah (Wilson), an archaeologist who is caring for her husband Joe (Celyn Jones), after he suffers a traumatic brain injury. Along the way, she meets couple Toni (Gainsbourg) and Gwen (Trine Dyrholm) who are going through a similar experience, prompting her to start an affair.
Now in a long-term relationship with her partner Ramona Agruma, Wilson recently welcomed her first child, Royce Lillian, via a surrogate. But things looked very different when filming The Almond and The Seahorse.
Interestingly, Wilson revealed that Gainsbourg’s role was initially meant to be a man, specifically Pierce Brosnan, but when schedules didn’t align she suggested they cast a woman instead, leading to Gainsbourg landing the role as her lover.
“I don’t know why I said that but I just felt it could work,” she continued. “I had kind of had a situation with a woman before, not a sexual relationship and we hadn’t kissed or anything.
Although Wilson didn’t think the kiss with Gainsbourg “was that big of a deal”, the experience did maker her consider kissing a woman in her personal life.
Life soon imitated art, and by the end of 2021, she had met her partner Ramona.
“If I hadn’t had the experience with Charlotte or the experience with the other woman, I don’t know if I would have ever met Ramona,” she continued.
“Having those experiences opened my heart up to it as a possibility. I’m grateful for those two experiences. It changed my love life completely. It’s such an awesome thing”.
Rebel Wilson also joked that she is not the only Hollywood actor that has experienced a sexual revelation after kissing a woman on set, adding that it was something she “hadn’t thought of before” because she had only dated men.
Unfortunately, Wilson’s coming out journey wasn’t a wholly positive experience after she was pressured by the Sydney Morning Herald to announce her relationship before she was ready.
Andrew Hornery, a columnist at the Australian newspaper, gave Wilson two days to provide a comment on her relationship before planning to run a piece detailing the actor’s romance with the fashion designer.
Rebel Wilson then decided to take matters into her own hands by posting a photo with Agruma on Instagram announcing that she had found her “Disney princess”.
“I come from quite a conservative family and so does Ramona and we were slowly telling people in our lives,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
“That kind of rushed it in a way that was really uncomfortable because we didn’t have time to tell everybody and I didn’t want a journalist to be the one to release a story like that”.
The Sydney Morning Herald was condemned by the Australian press and later issued an apology.
Happily, it seems that things have now settled into a new rhythm in Wilson’s life as she embarks on the next chapter with Royce and Ramona.
How did this story make you feel?
