Maria Menounos Kisses & Tells About ‘Kickin’ It Old Skool’

For years Access Hollywood’s own Maria Menounous has helped keep you up on all the latest in celebrity news, but this weekend she’ll be “Kickin’ It Old Skool” on screen with Jamie Kennedy.

Our lovely Ms. M, stars as Jennifer Stone, the ladylove of Kennedy’s character Justin Schumacher. An accident in the 1980s, leaves the young Schumacher in a coma. Decades later, he wakes up in the body of an adult. His lady has moved on and the times have too, but his love of breakdancing and breakdancing battles remains.

Menounous took a break from her hosting duties late last year to film the movie up in Canada. Recently, she sat down with AccessHollywood.com to talk about her first major acting role and what it was like smooching a star on set.

This movie has a lot of breakdancing in it. Did you get any training yourself?

Maria: I wish. I really wanted to learn how to dance something. [Sadly] there were no dance instructions for me.

Did you ask Jamie to teach you any for fun?

I goofed around a little. There’s a big dance-off in the movie and the choreography is so amazing that I was like ‘I have to be here to watch this!’I spent four days just watching. I had nothing to shoot on my own so I learned all their routines, the Funky Fresh Boys’ routines. I would practice it with them.

Have you since shown anyone the moves?

I don’t remember it any more. I think I found out pretty fast that that’s the one thing I’m never gonna add to my mile long resume.

Breakdancing?

Exactly! Leave it to the professionals.

How did you and Jamie Kennedy meet?

We met at the Young Hollywood Awards a few years ago. [As for the movie,] I went in and auditioned for the movie and I just loved it. I thought it was a really funny, sweet, goodhearted film.

I love Jamie. I think he’s so talented. The thing I love about him the most is his humor is usually good-natured. He’s not trying to hurt people, he’s not a mean spirited person at all, so I knew it was a film that I could back.

What’s he like to be around?

He’s fun to be around. It was the most fun I ever had on the set.

What kind of fun did you have on set?

We all got along really well. We’d go to dinner with them every night, we’d hang out on the weekends and we went to like Greek restaurants in Canada so we just had a lot of fun. It was just like being at camp, almost.

Jamie’s rap record with Stu Stone was about to come out when you started filming. Did he teach you to rap or write rhymes?

No, but we all became fans of his song “Circle Circle Dot Dot.” It was funny. He was juggling a lot of things at the time. I learned a lot from him. I know I have a lot of things going on at the time and I do get to those points where I’m so stressed out that I may snap here or there, but he kept and even keel. He was producing this movie, he had his money in it, he was doing the rap album, he was doing his MTV show, he was doing this documentary that’s going to Tribeca so he was very busy and he kept it all together. He knew the ultimate goal was what was gonna make it on that big screen and as someone who’s produced films for the last ten years, I learned a lot from him.

What was it like taking on such a big role compared to working for Access Hollywood and “Today”?

I was definitely up for the challenge. It’s something I’ve been waiting to do for a long time and I was really excited about it. I was nervous because once I got to set I realized there’s a whole arc to this character that I know where I’m at at every different point in this movie because you shoot it out of order. You have to know where your character is at all times. This was the first time I had to worry about that. Like “Fantastic Four” it was two scenes. There was nothing to worry about other than nailing those two scenes.

So on to the big question – making out with Jamie – was that uncomfortable – going from Access to ‘Hey! I’ve got to kiss someone on film?”

Yeah! Yeah! And it’s just uncomfortable to kiss anyone on screen ever.

You might be used to kissing cuddly animals on the “Today” or “Access” sets, but this isn’t a penguin or whatever, it’s Jamie Kennedy.

We both had Greek garlicky dip the night before so we were like let’s make sure we have lots of mints and stuff. We were very prepared.

[When] they ask for more takes you’re like “Uh huh? Didn’t you just get it on take number 30?” It’s funny, but he’s a good kisser.

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