Ridley Scott is setting the record straight on Denzel Washington’s same-sex kiss from Gladiator II.
When asked about the scene at the film’s Hollywood premiere, the director shared in an interview with Variety that the scene was “acted” out but ultimately wasn’t shot for the cameras.
“Denzel said he kissed a man on the lips but it didn’t make the final cut,” an interviewer from the outlet told Scott, 86, who responded, “No, that’s bull—-.”
He went on to note that there was a moment between Washington’s character Macrinus and “a senator” but clarified, “They never did [kiss]. They acted the moment — it didn’t happen.”
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Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures
Washington, 69, was also asked about the scene at the premiere. He told Variety that it was a “peck” rather than a “kiss,” and that the whole thing “really is much ado about nothing.”
“They’re making more of it than it was,” the two-time Academy Award winner said. “I kissed him on his hands, I gave him a peck and I killed him.”
Washington previously said that he kissed a male costar in a since-deleted moment after being asked “how gay” the sequel to the 2000 blockbuster was.
“I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out. They cut it,” the actor told Gayety earlier this month. “I think they got chicken.”
“I kissed a guy full on the lips and I guess they weren’t ready for that yet,” he added, before joking that in the sequence he “killed him about five minutes later” in what he called the “kiss of death.”
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Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures
That reportedly wasn’t the only kiss scene to end up on the cutting-room floor. Paul Mescal, who also stars in the film, revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he rehearsed a forehead kiss scene between him and Pedro Pascal, which didn’t make it into the movie either.
“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.’ ”
Gladiator II, written by David Scarpa (of Napoleon, the 2023 historical epic also directed by Scott), also stars Joseph Quinn and May Calamawy, and follows the story from the original film.
That movie followed Maximus (Russell Crowe), a Roman general who is the victim of a coup by the evil emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) who fights his way up the ranks as a gladiator so he can take vengeance upon Commodus for killing his family.
Gladiator II is in theaters Friday, Nov. 22.
