“Gladiator II” did not make the final cut. Washington, 69, plays Macrinus, a wealthy power player in Rome who owns a troop of gladiators, in Ridley Scott’s sequel to his 2000 sword-and-sandal epic.
The character reportedly mentions having had relationships with other men in the past, a plot point that led LGBTQ news outlet Gayety to query further when interviewing Washington ahead of the film’s premiere on Wednesday.When asked, “How gay is the Roman empire?” Washington responded with the reveal about his same-sex kiss. “I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out, they cut it,” Washington said. “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. “I killed him about five minutes later.
It’s ‘Gladiator.’ It’s the kiss of death.”A source confirmed to The Post that the kiss was filmed but noted that “it wasn’t a sexy kiss,” echoing Washington’s description of the lip-lock as a “kiss of death.”Washington’s remarks comes on the heels of news that a forehead kiss Paul Mescal, 28, shared with co-star Pedro Pascal in a scene from “Gladiator II” also didn’t make the film’s final cut.“I didn’t tell Ridley I was gonna do it,” Mescal recently told Cinema Blend of the kiss. “And then I was nervous after we did it because I thought he was going to f–king hate it.
So I nervously go over the radio being like, ‘Ridley? Did you like the kiss on the forehead? Yay or nay?’” Mescal then recalled Scott responding, “I’m afraid I did.”“So I don’t know where it got lost in the edit, but I trust this man entirely, though.