Taron Egerton has admitted the sex scenes in 'Rocketman' are "pretty explicit".
Taron Egerton
The 29-year-old actor portrays Sir Elton John opposite Richard Madden as his lover and manager John Reid in the upcoming biopic and he insisted it was important to make the film a "wholehearted celebration" of the singer's sexuality, even if that meant sacrificing its appeal at the global box office.
He said: "Well, the stuff we shot was pretty explicit. I mean, that's why I made the film. Those scenes are desperately important when you have an icon of that magnitude, who means so much to one community.
"[Elton] has been such a standard bearer. And for me, especially as a heterosexual actor, not to push the envelope as far as I can or try to make it a wholehearted celebration of being a gay man would be wrong.
"It's a studio movie. It's Elton John. We've got to own that. I don't care how well the film does in Russia. It doesn't matter. It can't matter. What's an extra $25 million at the box office? What are you willing to do for that? Sacrifice sleeping at night because you watered the whole thing down?"
And the movie's producer, the 'Candle in the Wind' singer's husband David Furnish, admitted he would "strongly resist" any attempts to tone down the references to Elton's sexuality to make the film more appealing.
He told Britain's GQ magazine: "International cinema is complicated and sadly the world isn't a homogenous place. I heard 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is going to China with any reference to Freddie being gay taken out of it.
"Well, you can't do that with our film, I'll tell you that. It's integral to Elton's journey as an individual and as an artist. I would strongly resist any sanitisation.
"The world continues to need to evolve and grow in the right direction. As it goes into that international distribution and marketing machine, you just have to do your best to preserve the integrity."
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