Denzel Washington says his gay kiss was cut from ‘Gladiator II’: “I think they got chicken”
Denzel Washington has revealed that a same-sex kiss scene he filmed for Gladiator II was cut from the movie.
In a new interview with Gayety, the actor, who portrays Macrinus in Ridley Scott‘s sequel to the 2000 blockbuster, said he kissed a male co-star in a since-deleted moment.
After being asked “how gay” the Roman Empire was, Washington replied: “I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out. They cut it. I think they got chicken.
“I kissed a guy full on the lips and they, I guess they weren’t ready for that yet,” he added, before joking that in the sequence he “killed him about five minutes later”, describing it as a “kiss of death.”
Washington’s same-sex kiss wasn’t the only one that was cut from the film. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, fellow Gladiator II star Paul Mescal shared that a forehead kiss between him and Pedro Pascal didn’t make the cut either.
The actor said he and Pascal were rehearsing a fight scene when he “had an idea” of kissing his co-star on the forehead toward the end of their battle.
“I did it in one of the takes, and then we’re getting the radio messages back to Ridley [in video village], and I was like, ‘Ridley: Kiss on the forehead, did you like it? Yay or nay?’ There was radio silence for a second,” Mescal said. “His radio crackles back, and [Ridley] goes, ‘I’m afraid I did.’ ”
“I think Ridley’s one of the funniest men I’ve ever come across,” he added, before confirming that kiss was eventually scrapped.
Elsewhere, Mescal also revealed that he had an argument with the director because he wouldn’t let him perform his own stunt.
Reviewing Gladiator II, NME‘s Alex Flood awarded the movie three stars and said: “If you loved Gladiator, it’s odds-on you’ll enjoy this too. It’s got all of the same exciting bits – swordfighting, rousing speeches, nasty poshos getting what they deserve.
“The problem is that’s all it gives you. You want to feel like you’re watching Maximus lift off his helmet and deliver that iconic monologue for the first time again. You want the thrill of a core memory being unlocked. You want to know you’ll be quoting Mescal’s lines to your mates in the pub for the next 10 years. Gladiator 2, piously respectful as it is, can only offer a faded memory of that experience. There was a dream that was Rome – and this is kind of it.”
The film’s concurrent release with Wicked has prompted some to dub the phenomenon Glicked, in reference to last year’s Barbenheimer.
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Chris Edwards
NME
