Denzel Washington revealed that a kiss he filmed with a man for Gladiator 2 was cut from the final edit of the film.
Gladiator 2, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s epic film, boasts an impressive cast including Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, and Joseph Quinn from Stranger Things, and has already been praised as one of the best films of the year by critics.
In the film, Washington plays Macrinus, a former slave who becomes a powerful power broker in Rome, with his sights set on the Emperor.
In a recent interview, Washington revealed that Macrinus is queer, with the film’s script noting that he had relationships with men in the past. The actor also shared that he filmed a scene where he kisses another man, but that it was cut from the final sequence.
“Actually, I kissed a man in the film, but they took it out, they cut it, I think they got scared,” Washington said to the Gayety channel. “I kissed a guy on the lips and I think they weren’t ready for that. I killed him about five minutes later. It’s Gladiator. It’s the kiss of death.”
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