'Red, White & Royal Blue' Director Addresses Movie's R Rating, What He Added to Script After Rating was Official

Red, White & Royal Blue, Prime Videos’ R-rated, queer rom-com, tells the story of the First Son of the United States falling in love with a Prince of England.

While fans of the Casey McQuiston novel that the movie is based on were excited by the rating, director Matthew Lopez recently admitted that he was a “little surprised” by it.

He opened up about the decision in an interview ahead of the movie’s August 11 premiere. The director also revealed what he added more of to the script once the rating was finalized.

Head inside to read more about Red, White & Royal Blue’s R rating…

“I think I was a little surprised at the R rating just because, while I never was encouraged to limit what we were showing or limit what I was depicting, the scene is what I intended to show. It plays exactly how I wanted it to play,” he recently told People. “But I do question whether or not if it had been a man and a woman, if we’d still gotten an R rating.”

Matthew stressed that he was able to make the movie that he wanted and was not pressured to keep the content to a PG-13 rating. He found himself balancing two things while creating the movie – how accessible it would be to queer audiences and how capable he was of telling the story.

That meant that there were some sacrifices initially.

“I essentially decided to hedge my bets, in that I wouldn’t step a toe over the line of PG-13 into R when it came to language,” he said. “But I would just do what I felt was right for the story when it came to the sexuality of the film and let the chips fall where they may.”

Once the film’s rating was official, Matthew said he “went back and put a couple more ‘f-cks’ into the film.”

He also called out what he saw as a double standard in terms of sexuality versus violence: “I think if there had been a scene of violence between them, I could have kept a PG-13 rating, but because they’re having sex and they’re two men, we got an R.”

Red, White & Royal Blue stars Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine. Press play on the trailer below.