Red, White & Royal Blue Director Opens Up About the Gay Romance's R Rating

Red, White & Royal Blue tells the romantic story of the son of the US president and one of England’s princes falling in love, but unlike most mainstream rom-coms, this one’s rated R.

While the film isn’t without its sexiness, director Matthew López admits that he was surprised by the 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," López told People about including a sex scene in the movie and how he thought it would impact the rating.

“But, I do question whether or not if it had been a man and a woman, if we'd still gotten an R rating,” he said.

He also questioned why movies with sex scenes get harder ratings than movies with violence.

“I also generally question the MPA's preference for violence over sexuality, it seems. 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,” he noted.

While López was shocked by the rating, he said that he was given permission when making the film to make it exactly how he wanted, no matter what the rating may be.

“Contractually, I had the ability to deliver an R rating. There were no limitations on it. I didn't have to do a PG-13 movie,” he said. “I wanted to make sure the film was going to be as accessible to as many people as possible. I didn't want to limit who the audience would be, but I also didn't want to limit my ability to tell the story in the way that I wanted to tell it.”

“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, when it came to — there's no violence in the story, of course,” he continued. “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.”

“The funny thing is that once I realized we were going to be rated R, in ADR I went back and put a couple more ‘f---s’ into the film. I figured why not now?”