Once every few months for the last two decades, the same somewhat-grainy 30-second clip is discovered anew. In it, Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling saunter toward one another across a stage as Maroon 5’s She Will Be Loved plays. They have just won the MTV Movie Award for best kiss in The Notebook — but their impassioned recreation of the kiss seems a lot more popular online than the original.
Nothing is more human than indulging in nostalgia for a simpler time — an era before social media or DeuxMoi sightings, where an onstage kiss between co-stars turned real-life couple held true novelty. If the clip isn’t committed to memory just yet, it goes something like this:
Before accepting the honour for 2005’s best on-screen lip lock, Gosling and McAdams remove their respective black blazers from opposite sides of the MTV Awards stage. She adjusts her strapless corset top as he beckons her closer. Gosling then hoists McAdams into his arms for a steamy kiss, as she wraps her legs around his torso. The camera pans to Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff, once apparent sworn enemies, who are united in their overjoyed reactions. Gosling visibly chews gum as he carries McAdams to the podium, where his-and-hers golden popcorn trophies await them. In lieu of an acceptance speech, Gosling offers a perfectly timed, “It was my pleasure.”
McAdams and Gosling’s victory was no surprise. Their stiffest competition that year was Garden State’s Natalie Portman and Zach Braff, another cinematic relic of early-aughts romance. But the way they accepted the award shocked even those running the live broadcast. “We just hoped that they’d do something fun,” MTV producer Joel Gallen, who directed that year’s show, told The Ringer in 2022. “They had this 10-second kiss and the place went nuts. I don’t even remember what they said after that. It was just this electric moment.”
It would’ve been far easier for the pair to play it cool. At the time, Gosling was on the precipice of his first Oscar nomination, McAdams was riding high on the success of Mean Girls, one of MTV’s most-awarded films that year. (It tied with Napoleon Dynamite, if you can believe it.) At the time, Gallen said, not even the show’s producers knew they were actually dating — meaning that the onstage kiss served as what we’d now call their relationship hard launch.