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.