Regardless of whether you celebrate Gladiator II as a historical spectacle after going to the cinema or are rather skeptical about the sequel: most people can probably agree that Denzel Washington delivers a first-class performance as the gladiator owner Macrinus. However, apparently not all facets of his acting made it into the finished film, if we believe the star.
Homoerotic kiss deleted? Denzel Washington says Gladiator 2 probably “wasn’t ready” for that
Denzel Washington plays the Roman upstart Macrinus, who really existed, although he was slightly changed for Gladiator 2. The power-hungry businessman takes the main character Lucius into his service as an arena fighter, but pursues his own goals when it comes to overthrowing the emperors Geta and Caracalla.
While filming the Gladiator sequel, Denzel Washington seems to have explored his role even further than we see on the big screen. The star revealed to Gayety about one two weeks ago same-sex kiss amidst the muscular bodies and sweat-drenched fights of Part 2:
I kissed a man in the movie but they cut it out. I guess, they were scared. […] I kissed a guy frontally on the mouth and I don’t think they were ready for that yet. I killed him about five minutes later. […] The kiss of death.
Macrinus’ bisexuality shimmers In Gladiator 2, it comes through in a few words and gestures when Denzel Washington’s character discusses her preferences with Thraex (Tim McInnerny) – who may also have been the recipient of the kiss. Ultimately, the action film proved to be less open to concrete depictions of homosexuality and queerness than ancient Rome, where same-sex sex between men is said to have been a common practice and gender played less of a role than the social status of the partner (cf. University of Birmingham) .
According to Ridley Scott, the queer Gladiator 2 kiss never existed
After the matter of “cut outAs the gay kiss has become more and more popular in recent weeks, Gladiator 2 director Ridley Scott also spoke out to Variety:
No, that’s bullshit. […] They never did that. You were playing at the moment – that didn’t happen.
Meanwhile, Denzel Washington has the kiss as “fleeting lip touch” relativizes and sees the matter as “much ado about nothing”because he first kissed his scene partner on the hand, then gave him a quick peck and then killed him in the film.
There Scenes are often shot multiple times and varied (by improvising actors), it is difficult to prove what happened and what did not. The director and star may have taken one of these improvisations differently and stored it in their memories.
Apparently Macrinus’ kiss wasn’t in the Gladiator 2 script. Whether a homoerotic lip touch is therefore “cut out“, if it was never a firmly planned part of the plot, is debatable. Ultimately, it is up to the director to decide which material from repeatedly filmed scenes he uses. Scott’s statements about what happened and what didn’t happen (“they were playing at the moment“), are difficult to interpret here.
Last month in Entertainment Weekley already had one other man kiss in Gladiator 2 made the rounds when lead actor Paul Mescal revealed that he kissed his opponent on the forehead in a fight scene with Pedro Pascal and that Ridley Scott would have liked this improvisation. However, this tenderness didn’t make it into the final cut of the sequel either.
Gladiator II Podcast: The Same Movie Again?
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24 years after Gladiator, director Ridley Scott delivers the highly anticipated sequel. To do this, he put a budget of between $250 and $310 million on the table and brought stars like Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal on board. Filmstart colleagues Pascal, Annemarie and Christoph will tell you in the podcast whether Gladiator II is a successful sequel or just copies the first part in a rather tired way.