Patricia Arquette reveals why she ate garlic before her worst onscreen kiss

Patricia Arquette has named Ewan McGregor as the co-star with whom she shared her worst on-screen kiss, and revealed why it was the result of a pact with Nicolas Cage.

Arquette joined her Severance co-star Adam Scott on Hot Ones Versus to either reveal details about their lives and careers or eat “death wings”.

The Boyhood star said her worst onscreen kiss was with Ewan McGregor, who she worked with in 1997’s Nightwatch, but it was entirely her fault because of a pact she’d made with then-husband Nicolas Cage.

“I was married to somebody at the time and we were very young and impressionable people,” Arquette said. “We made a deal that we were going to eat garlic if we had to do love scenes, so I ate garlic before I had to kiss Ewan McGregor and I am like, ‘I’m so sorry but I told my husband I was going to have to eat some garlic.’”

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While Arquette did not mention Cage by name, photos of them together appeared on screen as she answered. They married in 1995 and reportedly separated nine months later, although they stayed officially married until Cage filed for divorce in 2000.

Cage, however, chose not to honour the pact, Arquette said.

“Then he had to do a love scene and I’m like, ‘Well, did you eat garlic?’ He’s like, ‘I thought we were kidding,’” she said. “I was like, ‘What?!’”

The Independent has reached out to representatives for Arquette and Cage for comment.

Arquette is currently starring in season two of hit show Severance, where she plays Harmony Cobel, the former manager of the severed floor at Lumon.

The psychological series follows a group of employees at a company called Lumon, where staff undergo a procedure called “severance”, which divides their work and home lives completely in a daring experiment to find a work-life balance.

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Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, and John Turturro star as employees who in season two will be facing the consequences of their rebellion against the “severance” at the end of the first season.

In a five-star review of the second season, The Independent’s Annabel Nugent wrote: “Bottling the bolt-from-the-blue brilliance for a second season is infinitely tougher, but Severance pulls it off with style, balancing its various tones as expertly and effortlessly as a waiter during a Friday night rush. Thankfully, it is still one of the best shows on TV – certainly, one worth rushing home from the office to watch.”

The first three episodes of Severance season two are available on Apple TV+. The next seven episodes will be released on Fridays until the series finale on 21 March 2025.