‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ Director Insisted on “Intimate and Explicit” Sex Scenes Because of the Novel’s “Really Great Sex”

When Matthew Lopez pitched himself to Amazon as the director to adapt the best-selling gay romance, Red, White & Royal Blue, he didn’t beat around the bush.

“I said, ‘These two characters in this novel have really great sex,'” Lopez told Decider in a recent Zoom interview. “‘They have a great emotional relationship and they have a great physical relationship. I’m not going to only do one of those [things] in this movie. If you hire me, you know what you’re getting.'”

Luckily for fans of Casey McQuiston’s steamy 2019 novel, Amazon did hire Lopez, both to direct and to co-write the script with Ted Malawer. The movie, which began streaming on Prime Video today, centers on the fictional son of the American president, Alex (played by Taylor Zakhar Perez), who falls in love with the fictional British prince—who also happens to be Alex’s professional rival—Henry (Nicholas Galitzine). It’s a sweeping “enemies to lovers” romance that takes its cues from the fan-fiction community, including quite a few scenes featuring Alex and Henry having life-changing, mind-blowing sex. McQuiston never fades to black, and neither does this R-rated adaptation.

Lopez, who is openly gay, is best known for his 2019 Tony-winning Broadway play about the impact of the AIDS crisis, The Inheritance, often called a spiritual successor to Angels in America. To say Red, White & Royal Blue—Lopez’s first feature film—is a tonal shift is an understatement. But fans needn’t be worried. Lopez clearly is just as obsessed with Alex and Henry’s love story as every person who’s penned a story on ArchiveOfOurOwn.org. “The movie Red, White & Royal Blue is the ultimate form of fan-fiction,” Lopez confessed. “I love the book so much that I went and made a movie based on it!”

The director spoke to Decider about capturing the intimacy of the sex scenes, his rule for making changes from the book, and how he pulled off that cake-tastophic opening scene.

Decider:  The cake scene, which opens the movie, was perfect. Walk me through filming that: How many cakes and how many takes?

Matthew Lopez: It was funny—I tried my best throughout this whole movie to keep things loose and organic. While we definitely had a clear plan for this film that we followed, I also wanted to make sure that everybody felt that they had the ability to invent. But when it came to the cake scene, I was about as rigid as a camp counselor. [Laughs.]

We used a styrofoam and latex cake for most of the scene so that it wouldn’t melt, and so that it wouldn’t go bad, because we were shooting that particular part of the scene over the course of two days. We could drop it as many times as we wanted to, and not destroy it, and it was very lightweight. My production designer actually laid on the floor and had them drop it on her head just to show everybody that it was safe! So even the falling of the cake—a lot of that was like not real cake.

But then it came to getting the boys goopy. We had multiple cake pieces lined up, and we had multiple costumes for [Zakhar Perez and Galzitine]. We got them on the floor, we got them all situated. Then my production designer and I were the ones who off-camera threw the cake in their faces. And we hit the bull’s eye on the first take! Nick and Taylor were laying on the floor, we all conferred, and I was like, “We got it. Let’s not waste any time showering them, redoing their hair and makeup, changing them. Let’s just keep going. I got it in one, and we should take the blessing and move on.”

Then we got to spend the rest of the time filling out the areas and getting different shots. We also had extra time to then reverse onto them, and that direct wide shot of them coming out of the cake, like something out of the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was the most technical filmmaking I think we did in the entire movie. Because if you screw it up, you’ve wasted a lot of time.

There is a major character cut from the book, June, aka Alex’s sister. What was the process behind that decision, and was there ever a version of the script with her in it?

Because I am a striking writer, what I told Amazon is I will talk about my directing, but I won’t talk about the writing process. I will answer your question as the director though. Not specifically, but in a general sort of way, which is—as I was putting this movie together, I had a lot of conversations with the producers and with [author] Casey [McQuiston]. And the first thing we knew was that movie time is not the same thing as novel time. Casey’s only limitation was page count. I had a lot more limitations to contend with. The decision I made as the director of the film, was that if it was not specifically about Alex and Henry—if it did not help me understand them as individuals or as a couple—it didn’t belong in the movie. That applied to a lot of scenes that we filmed, and then decided to take out in the editing process.

The decision I made on anything always had to do with, “Alex and Henry are at the center, and every other thing in the movie is a tributary into those two rivers.” If I could make the audience feel the same way at the end of the film as they did at the end of the book, then no matter how differently I may have gotten there, I will have felt that I had succeeded.

One thing that achieved that for me is the way you filmed the intimate scenes between Alex and Henry. I love that you include the awkward parts of sex—the communication, Alex’s uncertainty—alongside the hot parts. Why was that important to include, and did you receive any studio pushback on these scenes?

As with everything in a movie, there [were] a lot of negotiations about the cut of the film. Not just in that scene, but all the scenes across the board. And I was a first-time filmmaker who didn’t have final cut, so there was also that to contend with. But, when I was pitching myself as the director, I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings about my intentions. I said, “These two characters in this novel have really great sex. They have a great emotional relationship and they have a great physical relationship. I’m not going to only do one of those [things] in this movie. If you hire me, you know what you’re getting.” And they hired me!

To me, it was always really important in a film like this that we understand their physical connection to one another. Because I think, as with my earlier answer about what belongs and what doesn’t belong in the film, the sex that they have, and the intimacy that they experience together, directly impacts our understanding of the character. Alex is someone who, up until the point that he meets Henry, assumes he’s straight. Or maybe straight but fluid, or he doesn’t really identify in any way, and just allows people to assume that he’s straight. He discovers that he’s actually bisexual—and not only is he bisexual, he is hot for his nemesis. By the time we get to that scene in Paris, Alex is way out of his comfort and experience zone. He’s so vulnerable. And I think the way Taylor plays that scene is so beautiful.

Henry, who has been very reticent with Alex, suddenly takes control and says, “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.” What happens to them that night is life-changing. Alex has penetrative sex with a man for the first time. Nick [Galitzine] and I decided together that, while Henry is more experienced in these matters than Alex, this is the first time that Henry is having sex with someone that he has real feelings for. For the two of them, in very different ways, they’re having a life-changing experience during this scene. I could have shot that [scene] on a wide lens—I could have seen their full bodies in the bed—but that would not deliver on what, to me, was the most important part of the scene, which was watching their faces. Letting these brilliant actors act a scene of intimacy, rather than simply perform a scene of intimacy. We challenged ourselves to create a scene that was both incredibly intimate and explicit, but also deeply connected to character and to emotion.

This book is a work of original fiction, but the tropes and the tone owe a lot to the fan fiction community. Do you engage in the world of fan fiction at all? What do you see as its role in queer romance, and the tropes that we’re starting to see in TV shows and movies?

I have to be honest with you, I think in some ways the movie Red, White and Royal Blue is the ultimate form of fan fiction. I love the book so much that I went and made a movie based on it! Look, I don’t know how to answer your question specifically. I’m a little out of the loop because I’ve been making this movie for the last two years. What I will say is that I think that the success of Heartstopper, for example, proves that there is a real hunger in the world for a lot of different kinds of storytelling than what we have been given up to this point. There is a real hunger for very specific storytelling. It isn’t just the general sort of queer categories that used to permeate [media], which usually meant two, white cis men. Instead, it’s about very specific characters. Heartstopper works, in part, because those are incredibly specific characters—not just the two leads, but everybody that populates that world.

What I see is that the fans of these books, TV shows, movies, responding to a level of specificity that we don’t usually seem to get. We don’t even seem to get it in what you might call “straight storytelling.” Specificity in movie-making, especially, has fallen out of fashion. And that’s a shame. And I think people really respond to very specific storytelling. I think that’s honestly why Barbenheimer—those two movies—are wildly successful. They’re not based on comic books. Yes, Barbie’s an IP, but it’s an IP that’s never been shown before. It gave a writer-director free rein to do whatever she wanted to do. It was the work of a true film artist, working very commercially. And Oppenheimer’s like—who the hell was ever screaming for that movie? And there it is glorious and complicated, and again, the work of a writer-director that is really, really brilliant. So, two very specific movies, that are doing much better than those broad general movies are doing at the box office.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.