Matthew Lopez has adapted Casey McQuiston’s hit LGBTQ+ romance novel for the screen.

By Patrick Cremona

Published: Tuesday, 08 August 2023 at 11:59 AM

---

Adapting a beloved book for the big screen always brings with it a certain degree of pressure – and Red, White & Royal Blue director Matthew Lopez has revealed there were some scenes from the best-selling book he knew he could never leave out.

The upcoming film is based on Casey McQuiston’s hit LGBTQ+ romance novel of the same name, which quickly developed a devoted following after its publication in 2019.

And ahead of its Prime Video release, Lopez spoke exclusively with RadioTimes.com about the adaptation process.

“I think there are certain things in that book that, as the director of the movie, if I hadn’t put it in the film I would never be allowed to direct a movie again,” he revealed.

Specifically, he singled out “the cake scene” – a moment in which lead characters Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) and Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) embarrassingly fall into a giant wedding cake after an altercation.

“There was no chance that I was going to cut the cake scene out of the film,” Lopez said, while also revealing an amusing behind-the-scenes detail about filming that moment.

“The thing about the cake scene is that that shot of the cake landing in their faces is actually me and my production designer throwing cake in Taylor and Nick’s faces,” he laughed.

“After about three weeks of filming [that] was a really great way for me to burn off some steam!”

Read more:

And that scene was just one of many that Lopez was excited to bring to the screen after first reading and falling in love with McQuiston’s book in early 2020.

“While I was preparing the film, I was really… I put a lot of thought and a lot of care into the V&A scene,” he explained. “We got to film overnight at the V&A one evening and it was very magical.

“And so, as a filmmaker looking at the book, there were just a lot of things that I was excited to film.”

It obviously helped that Lopez was such a huge fan of the book – and indeed the director confessed that once he had read it he was absolutely convinced that he had to be the person to helm the adaptation.

“There are certain things where you’re like, ‘Yeah, I could do that’ or ‘Well if you pay me enough, I’ll do that,” he said.

“And then there’s, ‘I can’t live with myself if I don’t try and make this movie’. And that’s where it lived for me with this one – I basically was very, very shameless in my attempts to be the person who got to make this movie!”