Maisie Williams on her character’s same-sex romance in The New Mutants

Maisie Williams and her New Mutants costar talk about what it was like to play a same-sex romance in the upcoming X-Men spinoff.

The New Mutants, the long-awaited X-Men spinoff about a group of young mutants confined to a mysterious institution that aims to “cure” them of their powers, opens in theaters tomorrow…for better or worse. (Please, if you go, take precautions.) The movie has had a long and twisty road getting here, but the final product looks pretty interesting, a horror-themed take on the superhero genre that finds wounded teenagers connected under scary circumstances.

The New Mutants has an ensemble cast, but two of the most important characters are Danielle “Dani” Moonstar (Blu Hunt) and Rahne Sinclaire (Maisie Williams), known as Mirage and Wolfsbane respectively. Speaking at a press conference, the two of them talked about what it was like to play characters who start up a same-sex romance.

“We met two or three months before we shot the film and I’d done a couple of screen tests before, but this was the first time I had to kiss a stranger,” Williams remembered (this would have been well before COVID, FYI). “That’s always a nerve-wracking experience.”

Hunt was nervous, too, but said that playing that scene with Williams cleared things up. “I think I knew I got the part as soon as we kissed, you know,” said the actress. “I was like, ‘That was real.’”

For his part, director Josh Boone sees this as one of the key scenes in the movie. “I had them lay down on the floor together, just like as if they were looking up at the stars like they are in the movie … So we did really act that scene out the way we did when we shot it.”

"People ask me what are you excited to see, and yes, [there’s] all the cool visual effects and the big fights at the end and all that. But just seeing these two girls under the dome looking up is really cool to see in a movie. So I’m just excited to see it as much as the action."

So far, Marvel movies have had a spotty history with LGBT representation; mostly, they’ve just avoided it. There’s a scene all the way back in 2003’s X2: X-Men United where Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) “comes out” to his parents about being a mutants that’s played as a metaphor for homosexuality, but it would be a while before a Marvel movie would bring us the real thing.

More recently, Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie has gotten attention for being bisexual, but it’s mostly been implied onscreen. Marvel boss Kevin Feige has promised that she’ll have a more explicit LGBT story in Thor: Ragnarok. And there will be an openly gay couple in The Eternals, so Marvel is taking steps.

The New Mutants opens on August 26. Proceed with caution.

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h/t SyFy Wire