While promoting his turn as gay rock icon Elton John, Rocketman star Taron Egerton has spoken out about how he finds kissing men on screen as”satisfying” as kissing women.
The 29-year-old actor was asked by The Hollywood Reporter about the challenges of playing gay love scenes as a heterosexual actor. “For me, kissing a man onscreen is no less appealing than kissing a woman onscreen,” Egerton explained. “I’m not in any way repulsed by the male form. It’s an uncomfortable thing regardless of who you’re with. It makes no difference as to your sexual preference.”
Related: Taron Egerton really wants you to see him naked
The actor’s words mark a transgressive approach, particularly in a business where actors have been long discouraged from coming out or even playing gay characters. Both Egerton and Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher have gone to great lengths to assure nervous audience members that the film will not downplay the queer content in any way, including in sex scenes. The release of Rocketman follows the wild success fo Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody last year, which ignited controversy over the censoring of Mercury’s sexuality.
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In addition to his assurance of queer content in the upcoming movie, Egerton has also become quite vocal about his own experience with the LGBTQ community and his admiration for queer culture despite identifying as straight.
Rocketman hits movie screens May 31.
jcoberkrom
I’ll never forget what Steven Weber said about kissing a guy in the movie “Jeffrey” years ago.
Basically, he said it wasn’t different from kissing a woman except it was strange having a beard come back at you.
ptb2016
And imagine a straight guy having to kiss a woman he doesn’t find at all attractive! It’s called acting! You pretend to be somebody else. For actors it must be fun discovering so many facets of being human and getting paid to try them out!
TomG
There’s an old saying…or maybe it was a song…”A kiss is just a kiss….”.
MacAdvisor
And a sigh is just a sigh.