Alright, so Holiday in the Sun—aka that iconic cinematic masterpiece where the Olsen twins go to the Bahamas and solve some sort of resort-based crime while wearing low-rise capris—wasn’t just weird for viewers. It was also weird for Austin Nichols, the guy who played one of the swoony love interests… and ended up smooching Mary-Kate Olsen on camera.
And now, two decades and a ton of hindsight later, Austin is here to confess: “Yeah, that kiss? That felt… ehhhhhh… morally questionable at best.”
On the Drama Queens podcast (which is not about Real Housewives, surprisingly), Austin spilled the vintage tea about locking lips with a 15-year-old Mary-Kate while he was out here in his full “college student with student loan debt” era.
“I was definitely nervous,” he said, probably sweating bullets and chugging a Capri Sun on set. “Mary-Kate was 15, and I was, I think, 18 or 19, or maybe even 20. I don’t remember…”
Sir. If you don’t remember whether you were 19 or 20, the answer is: Too Old™.
“And it felt weird, and it felt wrong.”
You don’t say!
But wait—it gets better.
“I looked very young, so watching the movie, I don’t think you notice. I’m real tall and skinny and nerdy.”
Translation: “I was giving major skate park sidekick who smells like Axe vibes, so it probably wasn’t that noticeable.” Sure, Austin. Sure.
Still, he acknowledged that internally it was giving major “stranger danger” energy:
“From my brain, I was like, ‘She’s 15. This is weird.’”
Yes, Austin. Yes it is.
The internet is, of course, eating this up, because anytime someone from the early 2000s says, “Wait, should we have done that?”—it sends all of us spiraling back to a time of questionable fashion, questionable plotlines, and very questionable parental supervision on teen movie sets.
So, next time you rewatch Holiday in the Sun (which, let’s be honest, you totally will), just know: behind every awkward on-screen kiss was an actor going, “Yikes. This is definitely going to haunt me on a podcast in 20 years.”
