This is Austin Nichols. You might have seen him in stuff like the classic CW TV show One Tree Hill, as well as movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Wimbledon.
Back in 2001, Austin starred in the film Holiday in the Sun, which was one of the many direct-to-video Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen films that you, dear reader, may have been raised on.
In the film, Austin — who was born in 1980 and is currently 44 years old — shares a kiss with Mary-Kate, who was born in 1986 and is 38 years old. The film came out in November of 2001, so if you operate under the assumption that it was filmed some time in the year before release, Mary-Kate was somewhere between 14 and 15 years old — and Austin was between 20 and 21 years old.
Obviously, just the idea of a 14-or-15-year-old engaging in a romantic kiss with a 20-or-21-year-old is…not good. In a recent interview on the Drama Queens podcast, Austin got real about just how not good it felt to act out the scene at the time.
“I was definitely nervous because Mary-Kate was 15, and I was, I think, 18 or 19, or maybe even 20,” Austin said. “I don’t remember, but I was too old. And it felt weird, and it felt wrong.”
“And I looked very young, so watching the movie, I don’t think you notice. I’m real tall and skinny and nerdy. But I don’t think you can tell there’s a big age difference. But from my brain, I was like, ‘She’s 15. This is weird.’”
Well, hey, at least he knew it was weird, I guess. You can listen to the entire interview here.