When a beloved book is turned into a movie, it’s no guarantee that the film will be as big of a hit as the novel was. However, in the case of director Matthew López’s feature-film debut, Amazon Studio’s queer rom-com “Red, White & Royal Blue,” all expectations were exceeded with fans and critics alike.
López, while new to film, is no rookie when it comes to queer stories. He is the award-winning playwright of “The Inheritance,” a play inspired by the novel “Howard’s End” that looks at the life of three generations of queer men in New York decades after the start of the AIDS epidemic. The play was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won four, including Best Play for López, making him the first Latinx writer to win in that category.
He followed that up by co-writing the book of the musical adaptation of “Some Like It Hot,” which not only earned him another Tony Award nomination but also updated the classic film into a musical for a new generation and earned nonbinary actor J. Harrison Ghee a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.
Before making it on Broadway, López, a Florida native born in Panama City, learned the trade at the University of South Florida, earning a bachelor’s degree in theatre performance.
“Go Bulls!” he exclaimed over a Zoom call as he was gracious enough to chat with Watermark after the release of “Red, White & Royal Blue,” which became the No. 1 film on Amazon worldwide in its opening weekend.
WATERMARK: “Red, White & Royal Blue” debuted at No. 1 worldwide on Amazon Prime. How are you feeling now after the film has been released and you’re seeing it get such a positive response?
López: The first wave of it was just sort of being told by friends. Just overnight, Twitter and Instagram and TikTok were just ablaze with reactions, and then over the course of the weekend, I was hearing from folks at the studio going it’s overperforming. And it’s exceeding expectations left and right, everywhere and it just took off. It was exciting — really, really exciting.
When did you first hear about “Red, White & Royal Blue” and what about it appealed to you enough to want to make it your directorial debut?
I read the book just before the pandemic in very, very early 2020. My agent sent it to me thinking I might a.) enjoy it and b.) thinking that I might want to turn it into a musical. I read it and I honestly couldn’t see the musical, but I could see the movie, and so I pursued it. It was not one of these things where people came to me and asked if I wanted to work on it. I called the producers and I made sure that my name was at the top of everybody’s list. I was very, very shameless about how I wanted it and sort of letting them know that that I’d kneecap anybody who came near it [laughs].
Were there any nerves about jumping from the stage, where you are known and established, to film?
I will say that when you make a film that has the resources that this does, the whole process of getting ready to get to your first day of filming is really a process of preparing for that. The pre-production process on this was four months long so by the time I got to day one of filming I knew the movie I was making. I had talked about it at nauseum to all of my HIDs and to my director photography. It’s funny, there were nerves but a lot of the inherent sort of nausea that might come from taking on something this big for the first time was alleviated by the necessity of being prepared. So, I think yeah, sure there were days when I just wanted to be anybody else but me, but there is just a deliberate quality to the pre-production process that I was ready to shoot the day we started.
One thing I loved was this sex education lesson in the film. After Alex and Henry make love, you can see empty condom wrappers, when Alex comes out to his mom she mentions getting on Truvada and getting the HPV vaccine. Why did you want to include this queer sex education throughout the film, that I assume that was intentional?
Deeply. Well, you know why not? I think that it was I couldn’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t, you know? We knew that even though we were effectively making a fairytale, if the movie didn’t feel grounded in real world stakes, if it didn’t feel relatable to its audience — even the audience that aren’t men who have sex with men — it wanted to be rooted in real truth. And these are things that parents should talk to their young, queer sons about, and these are certainly things that I would love my president to know about.
So there was a bit of wish fulfillment in some ways in that maybe as a result of watching this movie, a parent of a queer child who comes out to them may be better equipped to have that conversation because they watched Uma Thurman [who plays the U.S. president] and Taylor [Zakhar Perez, who plays her son Alex in] that scene. We went endlessly on about condom wrappers and the lube bottles, and I just wanted the movie to, even though we’re talking about fairytale princes and all that stuff, I just wanted it to feel real.
I watched this film with friends and during the love making scene, you show Alex slide his hand into Henry’s and they lock fingers. Then at the end you see Henry’s hand tense and Alex slides out. To me that was symbolism for the intercourse and everyone told me that I was reading too much into it. Was it your intention with cutting it like that?
Yeah, well look I didn’t film it with that intention. I was just getting shots, like what do you want to get? Should we get their hands? I remember on the day, we shot the hands on a different day than the actual scene in the hotel room because I was talking to my editor like a week or so later and she was just like, “I really wish I could have some shot with their hands because I would really like to get some close, close, close shots.”
So we went and we did an afternoon a pickups for that and we had [Nicholas Galitzine, who plays Prince Henry]’s hand, and they were smart enough to give them a manicure that day [laughs], you know, I just remember working with our intimacy coordinator and we were like alright, run your hand up his forearm then take his hand. I was just narrating to them what they would do, and we did a number of those things and then we got into the edit and we pieced it together that way and then it became very intentional.
“Red, White & Royal Blue” and the new season of “Heartstopper” on Netflix came out within a week of each other, so queer stories are being talked about a lot and the conversation of “queer roles should be played by queer actors” have come back up again. What are your thoughts on the debate that “straight” people shouldn’t go out for roles that are LGBTQ+?
When it comes to that question, I’m allergic to the word “should.” I think it is very antithetical to the creative force. I am in favor of “it’s often better when,” I actually find that a little more helpful. For me when it comes to queer actors playing queer roles and gay actors playing gay roles, where I stumble across very quickly is the notion that human sexuality is a continuum and is not a binary thing. It changes over time, it changes throughout your life. It is based on many, many things so what I have always sort of believed is the most important thing, is that an actor’s life is mostly spent auditioning unless you’re Matt Damon or Meryl Streep. You spend most of your life auditioning for roles that you won’t get just based on the odds, and what is most important to me is that as many queer actors as possible are seen for roles.
A lot of this conversation came about because queer actors weren’t even allowed to audition for these roles, and it was because they were openly queer. I am only going to cast the actors that I believe I can work with to create my vision. That is based on how they look, how they sound, what their emotions lead them to, what their spirit is; do I see the character in them?
But what is important, and I think it’s important in terms of the business, is that queer actors need to be known by casting directors, need to be known by directors, need to be known by producers and studios. I can’t cast actors whom I don’t know. I can’t cast actors who are not allowed to audition. I can’t create in a vacuum. I can’t create that which I don’t know that I don’t know.
So for me it was important to have as many choices as possible when I was making this film. I wanted to make sure that queer actors were seen for it, then in terms of employment you’re not allowed to ask a person their sexuality, so for me that was not the determining factor. I didn’t ask, I didn’t want to know. All I wanted to know was, are you my character? Are you the character?
With Hollywood in the middle of the strikes, do you have any thoughts on where we are right now or a message to those who are on the picket lines who aren’t A-listers?
I don’t want to give a message just because I don’t think it’s my place necessarily. I’m one of many, that’s the point of the union. I’m also not privy to the negotiations beyond what the rest of us get when the WGA emails us the update.
What I will say is that it’s obvious that our resolve and our solidarity is very strong. And the one thing I will say is that I think that the studio really underestimated our resolve and especially when it comes to the actors. I mean, one of the most telling bits of data that has come out of the actors’ strike is that in order to qualify for the health insurance, annually an actor has to make $26,000 a year, and 86% of SAG-AFTRA members did not qualify. When you consider the fact that 86% of SAG-AFTRA membership do not make $26,000 a year as an actor, which means they’re Uber drivers, they’re waiters, they’re nannies, they’re whatever it is that they have to do to supplement their income. What difference does it make if we’re not working for six weeks, six months? Why would they care if the strike has to go six months? They’re still not making that money anyway.
So I think that the studios really, really underestimated the stomach of the writers and the actors for a long strike. We don’t want to be on the strike forever, it’s not like that’s fun but we won’t go back to work until there’s fair deal. Period, full stop and we’re not afraid of it lasting as long as it needs to.
“Red, White & Royal Blue” is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video now.
