How ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ Reimagined a BookTok Sensation

On most Fridays, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London closes at 10 p.m. sharp. But one night time final summer season, after the entire vacationers had spilled again onto the streets of South Kensington, two males slow-danced among the many Berninis and Rodins till the solar rose the subsequent morning. A canopy of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by the indie-pop singer Perfume Genius echoed via the sculpture corridor, soundtracking their tender second.

The nocturnal scene was a scripted one from “Red, White & Royal Blue,” the movie adaptation of the 2019 novel by Casey McQuiston. The two males beneath the dimmed lights have been the actors Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, they usually swayed till the director, Matthew López, known as “Cut!” round 2 a.m. for a lunch break.

“It was just the three of us and our crew,” mentioned López, who’s additionally the movie’s co-writer. “It made for an incredibly intimate, really special night.”

The romantic comedy follows Alex Claremont-Diaz, the bisexual son of the primary feminine U.S. president (performed by Uma Thurman, with a thick Southern drawl), and Prince Henry, the youthful brother of the inheritor to the British throne who has identified since delivery that he’s “gay as a maypole.” What begins as a simmering rivalry between the impulsive American (Zakhar Perez) and the buttoned-up Brit (Galitzine) quickly develops right into a clandestine relationship. Neither is publicly out, and their secret love complicates issues, particularly for Henry.

Amazon Studios and Berlanti Productions secured the movie rights to McQuiston’s novel at public sale forward of its May 2019 launch, and the e book has since spent greater than 20 weeks as a New York Times finest vendor.

But best-seller lists don’t totally convey the adoration that “Red, White & Royal Blue” has garnered on BookTok — the literature-loving nook of TikTok — the place followers have shared their obsession with the escapist love story en masse, and movies tagged #redwhiteandroyalblue have obtained greater than 500 million views.

Jacob Demlow, who ceaselessly posts about “Red, White & Royal Blue” on his “A Very Queer Book Club” account, mentioned he flung his copy throughout the room in delight when he first encountered it.

“I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was all these amazing tropes that romance lovers have loved forever, but there was a couple in it who looked like a couple I would be in,” mentioned Demlow, who estimated that he’d learn the novel at the least a dozen instances. “I grew up watching movies about the girl falling in love with the prince, but I’d never seen that through a queer lens before. It was kind of earth-shattering in ways I still don’t fully know if I can comprehend.”

The movie, premiering on Prime Video on Friday, hopes to recreate that pleasure onscreen, and represents the directorial debut of López, a Tony-winning playwright identified for penning “The Inheritance,” in addition to writing (with Amber Ruffin) the musical adaptation “Some Like It Hot.” López was engaged on these initiatives in 2020 when his agent first floated the thought of turning “Red, White & Royal Blue” right into a stage musical.

“I read it and said, ‘Yeah, sure, maybe. But let’s talk about the movie,’” López recalled. “I knew I wanted to be the person who made this film by, like, Page 50.”

After pleading his case to the producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter, López signed on to direct and did a second cross on an authentic script by Ted Malawer. He solid two lead actors who had lower their enamel on Netflix romances: Zakhar Perez, 31, who starred as Marco in “The Kissing Booth” sequels; and Galitzine, 28, who appeared within the streamer’s army romance “Purple Hearts.” Galitzine additionally performed the prince in Amazon’s Camila Cabello-led “Cinderella.”

For each Zakhar Perez and the director, the character Alex’s biracial identification was significantly significant. López grew up in Panama City, Fla., together with his Puerto Rican father and Polish Russian mom, whereas Zakhar Perez is of Mexican, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean descent and was raised in northwest Indiana, the place he mentioned there was just one different Mexican household.

“Matthew and I talked a lot about the mestizo journey,” Zakhar Perez mentioned in a video name earlier than SAG-AFTRA, the actor’s union, went on strike. “Being part Mexican, part lots of other things, I don’t want to say you’re forgotten, but in today’s world, it’s like, you’re either this or you’re that. There’s nothing in between. I’m kind of a cultural chameleon.”

“As a young Latiné queer man, I never read something that centered someone like Alex,” López mentioned, echoing his star. “If I had been presented with this character when I was in my late teens, early 20s, it may have changed how I thought about myself.”

During the audition course of, Zakhar Perez and Galitzine did their chemistry reads by way of video and didn’t meet in particular person till rehearsals started in London. But the character of the script meant they would want to rapidly turn into snug capturing quite a lot of passionate scenes, which have been overseen by the intimacy coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt.

“Nick and I trusted each other quite quickly,” Zakhar Perez mentioned of Galitzine. “We had to build a sexual tension from dislike to like to love, and we wanted to show that journey through the choreographed, intimate moments.”

In the e book, McQuiston described Alex and Henry’s amorous bed room — and tack room and resort room — scenes in nice element, and López mentioned he “never, ever shied away from the sexuality” onscreen.

“At times, it’s extremely hungry and at times, it’s really tender,” Galitzine mentioned in a separate prestrike name. “Matthew was always adamant that he wanted to portray gay sex in an accurate way, which he felt maybe hadn’t been the case in other L.G.B.T.Q.+ movies.”

While the one lingering intercourse scene is a fastidiously cropped, emotional second, and the one nudity is the flash of a unadorned buttocks, “Red, White & Royal Blue” obtained an R score from the Motion Picture Association.

López was stunned: “If we had put six bullets into the prince, we probably would have still gotten PG-13,” he mentioned, and added, “If it had been a man and a woman, I question whether or not it would have gotten an R rating.”

(The filmmaker Ira Sachs just lately expressed related confusion over the NC-17 score for his new movie “Passages,” which additionally options homosexual intercourse. The M.P.A. mentioned in an announcement to The Associated Press, “The sexual orientation of a character or characters is not considered as part of the rating process.”)

In the weeks main as much as the film’s launch, anticipation continued to construct amongst followers, coupled with fears that it may not seize the magic of the e book. Some apprehensive concerning the casting selections, the elimination of a number of supporting characters or the swap from a fictional queen of England to a fictional king, performed in a single scene by Stephen Fry.

“I was never going to entirely fulfill the image of this book that the millions of people who love it individually have in their heads,” López mentioned. “I knew from the beginning,” he additionally emphasised, “that this movie would succeed or fail based in part on the fans’ belief that one of them has made this film. I am one of them.”

Broader critiques take challenge with the premise of the story itself and the truth that it’s one more queer romance that entails the misery of popping out. But Demlow of A Very Queer Book Club sees it in another way.

“There are so many coming-out stories that need to be heard, and we also need more stories that aren’t coming-out stories,” he mentioned. “It’s not that we need less of something. It’s that we need more of everything.”