Scarlett Johansson isn't exactly playing up the titillation angle of her much-hyped lip-to-lip action with Penelope Cruz in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," describing their puckering up as simply less stubbly than previous on-screen encounters.

"Everybody wants to know what it was like," she observes to Parade. "Penelope had less facial hair than a guy so it was certainly more pleasant. It was better than kissing Jonathan Rhys Meyers in 'Match Point.'"

The stacked starlet admits that sucking face with the perpetually wide-eyed "Tudors" actor "wasn't that bad, but he did have to stop and shave in the middle of a scene even though he'd shaved that morning. The man has really got some beard on him."

Someone else who's currently "got some beard on him" is Johansson's fiancé Ryan Reynolds, whom she was photographed sharing a playful moment with earlier this week as they tooled around Los Angeles on his motorcycle.

"I'm just so fortunate to be in a very solid and comfortable relationship," says the actress. "I'm in a good place in my life right now. I'm a really big believer in loving yourself before you can give love to somebody else."

Also in a good place at the moment is James Franco, who is riding high -- bad, unintentional pun, but we're leaving it -- off the success of the stoner comedy "Pineapple Express."

But, like Scarlett, he, too, had an uncomfortable run-in with a hairy lip.

In a sit-down with GQ, he discusses his role in the forthcoming Gus Van Sant-directed biopic "Milk," in which he plays the boyfriend of Sean Penn's titular character Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians.

"The first kiss of the movie was out on Haight Street [in San Francisco], with, like, 200 people watching, outside," recalls the actor. "I'm sure in the end it will be a really cool shot, but it starts close and then it takes maybe a minute. That's a long time on film with everybody watching, and, like, a fake moustache getting in your mouth."

Notes Franco, "It was long enough that you couldn't help but thinking, 'Oh, my God, I'm kissing Spicoli,'" a reference to Penn's seminal, tasty waves- and cool buzz-seeking surfer dude from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Blake Lively and Penn Badgley lock lips while filming "Gossip Girl" in New York.

And in a final bit of tonsil-hockey news, Blake Lively wants the world to know she's nothing like her wild-side-walking "Gossip Girl" alter ego, Serena.

"There wasn't a period in my life like Serena went through, where I was doing drugs and having sex with my best friend's boyfriend," the 20-year-old actress assures the September issue of Cosmo. "I never went through that kind of crazy."

Blake, who's been snuggling up to her on-screen love interest Penn Badgley since the beginning of the year (and who was recently on the receiving end of a hilariously withering look from her "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" co-star America Ferrera), admits her saliva-swapping experience is limited.

"I've kissed just three people in my life, other than stuff that I've done for TV or movies," she reveals to the mag, which features her on the cover surrounded by such headlines as "100 Sex Truths," "The Sex Position They Lust For" and "What He Thinks When You're Butt Naked." "I know -- I'm weird! I hope Brad Pitt doesn't hear this. He's never going to want to marry me!"

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