Taylor Zakhar Perez asked Red, White & Royal Blue director to look at intimate hair before filming

The director of Red, White & Royal Blue has revealed that Taylor Zakhar Perez asked him to take a look at some rather intimately-located body hair prior to filming a sex scene. 

Since its release, Red, White & Royal Blue – based on Casey McQuiston’s award-winning 2019 queer novel – has been a hit with LGBTQ+ fans who cannot get enough of Alex and Prince Henry’s love story, or the film’s stars, Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine. 

The Prime Video hit traces the rivals-to-lovers story of Alex Claremont-Diaz (Zakhar Perez), the son of the US’s first female president, and Britain’s Prince Henry (Galitzine). The pair are forced to fake a friendship to the press following an incident with a wedding cake, only for their rivalry to make way for a bubbling romance which becomes very real and very intimate. 

Matthew López, director of the acclaimed romcom, appeared on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show where he discussed the topic of natural bodies in the film. 

Telling the hosts he had a “funny” story about that, López explained one day on set he received a call from his makeup coordinator who asked him to visit Zakhar Perez’s trailer. 

“I go into Taylor’s trailer – we’ve been making this movie for like, five, six weeks at this point – and Karen [Hartley] looks at Taylor and says, ‘Alright, tell him what you told me’,” López said.

“And he goes, ‘I don’t know if I should shave or not.’ I’m like, ‘Your face?’ and he goes, ‘No, babe.’ 

“I’m like, ‘Alright, well, what do you want to do about it?’ He goes, ‘Just look, okay?’”

According to López, Zakhar Perez then proceeds to lower his trousers and tells the director “look at my a**” to which López responds “you’re fine, you look great!’”

Following the story, The Jess Cagle Show hosts praised the film for not being a “glossing over of what bodies look like”. 

Male body hair has long been the source of body shaming within certain sections of the gay community, with some men feeling the pressure to remove their hair in order to fit with so-called beauty standards.

Back in 2021, queer men took to Twitter, now known as X, in response to a post which described hairy chests as a “massive ick”. They stood up against the body shaming by taking their shirts off and bearing their hairy bodies proudly.

In reply to the hosts’ comment, López said he understands that there is the situation where people’s bodies are changed in film, because “it’s Hollywood”, but he does not understand why “we can’t change that definition of what is beautiful”. 

He continued: “A body itself as it is naturally is a gorgeous thing and so yeah, I told Taylor ‘no please yeah just bring your hairy butt to set’.”