Gird your loins, we are now in the final countdown until Gladiator II comes out in exactly one week. The strapping stars were all spiffy at the London premiere on Wednesday including Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Pedro Pascal and Denzel! Not only did Denzel Washington tell King Charles’ minions that he wouldn’t be rushed away from fans at his own premiere, Denzel did so in sneakers. The gauche American wore sneakers on the red carpet and didn’t scurry away when told to! Clearly the people on Charles’ team had not caught the trailer for the film they were about to see, or they would’ve known not to mess with the man who plots the fall of the Roman Empire. And speaking of said empire, Denzel recently spoke with Gayety, a digital LGBTQ-focused magazine, and he was straight up asked “How gay was the Roman Empire?”. Denzel went on to lament that a scene where he kisses a male costar was cut from the final edit:

Denzel Washington revealed that a same-sex he filmed for Gladiator II was but from the final movie.

Speaking with Gayety, the actor, who portrays Macrinus in director Ridley Scott’s sequel to the 2000 blockbuster, said he kissed a male costar for a since-deleted moment. The revelation came after Washington was asked “how gay” the Roman empire was.

“I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out. They cut it,” Washington, 69, said. “I think they got chicken.”

“I kissed a guy full on the lips and they, I guess they weren’t ready for that yet,” he added, before joking that in the sequence he “killed him about five minutes later” in what he called the “kiss of death.”

Gladiator II also stars Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal, who play the characters Acacius and Lucius, respectively. Mescal revealed in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that their forehead kiss didn’t make the final cut either.

The actor, 28, said he and Pascal were rehearsing a fight scene during filming when he “had an idea” of kissing his costar “on the forehead” toward the end of the combat.

“I did it in one of the takes, and then we’re getting the radio messages back to Ridley [in video village], and I was like, ‘Ridley: Kiss of the forehead, did you like it? Yay or nay?’ There was radio silence for a second,” Mescal said. “His radio crackles back, and [Ridley] goes, ‘I’m afraid I did.’”

“I think Ridley’s one of the funniest men I’ve ever come across,” he added, revealing that the forehead smooch was eventually scrapped.

[From People]

So not only has Ridley Scott recently insulted actors by saying that they barely have to do any prep work, but now he’s officially been outed for cutting their genius moments of improvisation. The man is a serial kiss-cutter! Seriously, now I’m going to be watching the movie with an eagle eye towards picking up on moments that feel kiss-starved. And it’s not like same-sex relationships aren’t historically accurate for Ancient Rome. I guess yet again, I will have to fill in all the homo-erotic subtext in my head as I’m watching, thanks Ridley. Fingers crossed we get to see all the cut scenes in an extended version somewhere down the line. In the meantime, if you have 3:36 minutes to spare, Denzel’s interview with Gayety is a delight. The interviewer starts out by showing off all the rings she’s wearing as a nod to Denzel’s character, and he is SO excited it’s adorable, even following up with, “But what about the earrings?!” And while he doesn’t name drop Black Panther again, Denzel does say he’s having conversations with Ryan Coogler, Steve McQueen, and Paul Thomas Anderson about potential upcoming projects. Sounds like there are actually quite a few films left for him to make, after all.

Photos credit: James Shaw/Avalon, Alan D West/Avalon