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Let them eat cake: 20 fascinating facts about ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’

By Lee Meyer December 28, 2023 at 11:00am · Updated on May 10, 2024
Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Prime Video

Unless you’ve been living under the straightest rock imaginable, you’ve surely heard of, read, watched, and rewatched Red, White & Royal Blue. And perhaps you’ve heard, it’s getting a sequel!

This 2023 romantic comedy tells the story of Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar-Perez), the son of US President Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), who falls head over heels into a cake with Prince Henry of Wales (Nicholas Galitzine). While the two initially hate each other and are stuck in a hamfisted PR campaign to prove they are buds, they actually start to fall in love! 

Directed by Matthew López and based on the best-selling novel by Casey McQuiston, it’s a pretty classic rom-com set-up, to be honest, but the queer angle made it feel fresh and new. And, sure, enough Red, White & Royal Blue became one of the most talked about films of 2023 (at least in our very gay circles).

We’ve compiled 20 fabulous facts about Red, White & Royal Blue—just be careful of the cake.

1. The book is a New York Times bestseller.

Novel cover of ‘Red, White & Royal Blue.’ Image: Macmillan

It spent more than 20 weeks on the list, and, according to NYT, was a “BookTok sensation.”

2. McQuiston was inspired to write the novel during the (ugh) 2016 election.

Casey McQuiston. (Image: Getty Images)

The author told The Nerd Daily: “RWRB started while I was following the 2016 presidential election and reading A Woman In Charge by Carl Bernstein and The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan at the same time. I was inspired to do something inside both of those high profile yet super secret worlds, and when I had the idea that I could make a member of the first family fall in love with a member of the royal family and explore both, I instantly knew this was a book I could do.”

3. McQuiston wanted to play with certain tropes.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

“I knew from jump that the Prince Charming archetype was something I wanted to play with and subvert, and so that informed what the first kid in my book would be like,” McQuiston told The Nerd Daily.

4. They also have a cameo.

Casey McQuiston. (Image: Getty Images)

McQuiston appears briefly as President Claremont’s speechwriter. 

5. Matthew López considered making it a musical.

Matthew López. (Image: Getty Images)

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

6. The director identified with the character of Alex.

Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Red, White & Royal Blue. (Image: Amazon)

López had a Puerto Rican dad and a Polish-Russian mom and related to the character, who is also biracial and queer. “As a young Latiné queer man, I never read something that centered someone like Alex,” he told the NYT. “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.”

7. While it’s a faithful adaptation, the film has some notable changes from the novel…

Uma Thurman as Ellen Claremont in Red, White & Royal Blue. (Image: Amazon)

In the book, Alex’s father, Oscar (Clifton Collins Jr.), is divorced from mom Ellen (Uma Thurman) and has his own family. In the film, they’re happily married.

8. …including fan fave June, Alex’s sister.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

“This was probably the most controversial change,” López told Entertainment Weekly. “It was the possibility of having two young actors playing Nora [Alex’s best friend, played by Rachel Hilson] and June, each of whom would have very little to do in the movie as a result of the two of them being there. I worried about two actresses having half a meal and neither being given a real chance to shine.”

9. Casting Alex and Henry took five months.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

López told the Wrap, “It took that long. We saw literally hundreds and hundreds of actors, especially for Alex. And when I first encountered Taylor and when I first encountered Nick, they instantly popped for me. They captured my attention and they really made a very strong case for themselves as these roles.”

10. Galitzine didn’t read the novel before filming.

Nicholas Galitzine

According to Teen Vogue, Galitzine treated the script as a “bible” and only read the novel after production wrapped.

11. Zakhar Perez hadn’t even heard of it…

Taylor Zakhar Perez

“I hadn’t heard of the book or read the book before the audition came,” he told Newsweek. “I think a friend of mine auditioned or something, and he sent it to me. He’s like, ‘Hey, have you got this audition?’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t know what that is.’ He’s like, ‘Well, here’s the book, I think they’re gonna start casting it.'”

12. …but read it as soon as he heard about the audition.

Taylor Zakhar Perez

“I really didn’t have any idea that it was so popular until I started telling people that I might be going to England for a project, and everybody was freaking out. Even my publicist was like, ‘Oh, my God, I read that during COVID. It’s an amazing book.’ I really didn’t know the magnitude of it,” Zakhar Perez told Newsweek.

13. The infamous opening scene, in which Alex and Henry end up covered in cake, took three days to film.

Red, White & Royal Blue. (Image: Amazon)

“It was hundreds of extras, it was cake, it was a vision, it was choreography through space, and it was a lot of dialogue. That was three days of me, just gritting my teeth,” López told Collider.

15. …which helped with the steamy sex scene.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

“When you’re friends with someone, it just makes the intimacy aspect of it all that much easier because you can trust in this person,” Galitzine shared with Out.

16. An intimacy coordinator helped with the scene.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

Robbie Taylor Hunt is a theater director and intimacy coordinator from the UK who has also worked on the Netflix serial killer series You, the 2022 horror Pearl, and the upcoming drag queen revenge thriller Femme.

18. He wanted Red, White & Royal Blue’s sex scene to be authentic.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Prime Video

This included exploring the complexities of top and bottom roles. “We tried to think about the little moments of ongoing consent, and—you do catch it in the film—a little sense of checking in between them,” Taylor Hunt told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s not just us going about the physical choreography of where body parts go and where their arms are, or where they’re pressed together. There’s also those little moments of connection when they’re checking on each other.”

19. The use of a condom over PrEP was intentional.

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

López and Taylor Hunt felt that Henry, a high-profile royal, would not be able to privately obtain a prescription without it leaking to the tabloids, so the scene showed Alex using a condom.

20. There might be a sequel!

Image Credit: ‘Red, White & Royal Blue,’ Amazon Studios

McQuiston told Out: “I mean, like, of course, I would love to. I don’t think I’m allowed to say anything more than that at this point.”

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8 Comments*

  • crazyoldman

    I hope they think long and hard about a sequel. This is my favorite LBGT Rom Com and have watched it too many times. Having read the book, there is more material. But, it will be hard not bomb on a second go round.

    • Diplomat

      Agreed!!!

  • Terrycloth

    Heard good things about it..then again I heard good things about Bros and Fire Island. Watched both hated them so I was weary about Red white and Blue..it was a very very well done movie..hated to see it end.. if you haven’t seen it you should

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  • linedrive

    Lovely movie. I, too, have watched it way too many times. Not that I’m apologizing… 🙂

  • Michael1500

    I’ve seen this movie five times, and could watch it again. Both of these guys are drop-dead good-looking, and it’s a romantic movie done well.

  • BLAKENOW

    But oh my God wow can you believe it? There’s two straight actors that are playing a gay couple successfully and they’re not even gay in real life ! Blasphemy! can you believe this? How can you handle this Queerty? How dare they! Where is the LGBTQ “community uniting and bitching about this? Where are they? Oh wait, I get it. They’re both hot so it’s OK.. No “gay for pay” bs talk necessary.

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