Category: Press
MAN ABOUT TOWN - The breakout star of the rom-com of the summer delves into the age-old pressures of adapting a book for the screen, finding an acting method that allows him to protect his peace and playing Uma Thurman’s on-screen son.
“I seriously could film in London for the rest of my life,” Taylor Zakhar Perez tells me. He pauses: “Let me say that again. I could film in London from April until October for the rest of my life.” Starring in Matthew Lopez’s big-screen adaptation of Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston’s New York Times Bestseller set primarily between the English capital and Washington DC, gave Zakhar Perez an optimum vantage point to assess the pros of filming in London vs Stateside.The enemies–to–lovers rom-com is centred around Zakhar Perez’s Alex Claremont Diaz, a fictional First Son of the United States, and British Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) as they fumble from foes to boyfriends under the constant glare of their respective countries’ media. From the second that Zakhar Perez logs onto our Zoom call, a couple of months before the film’s release, there is no doubt in my mind that he was the right fit for the charismatic, witty Alex. With an energy so contagious that my face aches from smiling, the Midwestern native speaks quickly yet intentionally, going on tangents but always seamlessly finding his way back to his original point.
Prior to trying for the role of Alex, he admits to not actually having read the 2019 book, however he did so, swiftly, before his audition. “I downloaded it on my Kindle and read it in three days,” he says. “I was on the plane and — I mean, the altitude does something to you — but I was just crying.”
McQuiston’s literary universe hints at what an alternate, diverse and progressive parallel world might look like – notwithstanding a serpentine path to public acceptance that sees Alex and Henry grapple with their respective sexualities, high-profile lives and the growing entanglement between their separate realities, against a backdrop of ever-present, real-world discourse on the privacy of public figures. However, it also sees the US with its first female president, played by Uma Thurman no less, and a love story between a biracial, bisexual First Son and gay prince that seems equally as romanticised and fantastical as possible.
Since the book’s release, readers have fallen in love with the characters and eagerly anticipated a film adaptation, with speculation rife in anticipation of Zakhar Perez and Galitzine’s casting on who would play the starring roles. “It’s so difficult because you want to please everybody,” he says. Finding the balance between drawing inspiration from the book and letting the script be “Bible”, as Zakhar Perez calls it, was a delicate game he and his cast mates aimed to master. “I tried just getting as much of the backstory as possible to understand how the characters work, as opposed to trying to recreate the book,” he explains. “I was really thinking about the character and their journey as opposed to anything else, because if I understood the character’s journey and how he responded to different situations, I’d understand how to play him and what his inner monologue and thought processes were.”
“But sometimes when you adapt to the screen, when you remove characters from a project that are beloved or are an integral part of the story, people get up in arms,” he acknowledges. He relates it to his own feelings around the Harry Potter series, which I quickly grasp was a favourite franchise of Zakhar Perez’s. “I was so mad in the ‘Sorcerer’s Stone when [Peeves the Poltergeist] wasn’t in there. But when I watched it, I was like, ‘Oh, you don’t need it. This is a different version.’ And I was quickly okay with it. And so I know that is a concern, and there was a lot of weight on our shoulders going into it.”
However, for a book like McQuiston’s which made so many people feel seen, represented and hopeful, the pressure of translating that magic to the screen could naturally prove even greater. “I got into acting to showcase characters that people can see in themselves or that can help them get through something,” Zakhar Perez explains. “It’s amazing that somebody could see this as a kid and think, ‘Wow, there’s a Mexican-American congressman in this film, and I’m a young Mexican-American kid, and I want to get into politics.’”
Whilst sadly Uma Thurman as President might not be on the cards in our reality, part of the appeal of the world McQuiston and now Lopez present is that many other aspects of it feel entirely plausible for a younger generation watching.“ The way I thought about it was, the reality of this film is a possibility. It’s not far from something that could happen. These are possibilities: having a female president, having a queer son [of the president], having a queer Prince, having a transgender bodyguard. Why not? It doesn’t seem far-fetched.”
And Zakhar Perez has seen the book’s effects first-hand. His 14-year-old niece and her friends read and adored it, he tells me, lighting up with the optimism it inspires in them for a changing landscape. “I wish I had this as a kid. I wish everybody had this book. It’s incredible that at a [young age], this [love story] is normalised. Anytime something comes up in the world, you can read a book and relate to it and find acceptance.”
Growing up without these kinds of books (with the exception of Harry Potter, which made him “want to be a wizard”) has not made his faith in their impact any weaker. “It is amazing that this book could have the power to educate young minds and make people less ignorant when they get older. It’s really exciting and I feel that weight on my shoulders in portraying this role accurately, and what Alex represents to a lot of people around the world. It’s a film that has something on its mind. You leave and you feel different. That’s the reason that I was so attracted to this. It changes people’s perceptions of others who they maybe never had the chance to experience. It brings compassion.”
Bringing compassion and chemistry to the screen would appear to have been effortless for Zakhar Perez and Galitzine, whose on-screen dynamic was so compelling it’s no surprise when he shares that they became close friends in real life as well. “Doing the intimacy stuff brought us closer because you just have to have such a high level of trust with your co-worker,” he tells me. “We were really lucky. Maybe it was because we had to lean into the humour and quick banter with each other on set, it just bled over into how we were in real life. I don’t know, but we became friends very fast and I’m grateful that we did.”
“The whole cast is incredible,” he continues, before jumping into the story of first meeting Thurman in rehearsals. “She walked in and I was like, ‘Hey Uma, I’m Taylor. I’m playing your son.’ She high-fived me, and I was like, ‘Can I have a hug?’”
“For me, my way in with actors is that tactile touch. It grounds me and centres me and reminds me that this is a real person and that in this moment, this is real. And she was so giving. Sometimes when you work with actors. you don’t have giving scene partners and with Uma, she was so giving. I just wanted to rise to the occasion every time I was there. I wanted to be as good as Uma Thurman and I wanted to make sure that she knew that I wasn’t taking this moment for granted. I have watched her in multiple films and she is such a transformative actress that you just know you can’t mess around. And she’s so grounded and strong. I’ve had great experiences with other actors like that as well, but she…” he pauses and laughs knowingly, about to quote his own line from the film, “…definitely takes the cake.”
Delving deeper into his process, I ask if he drew on experiences of being in the public eye to relate to the scrutiny his character faces. “Alex and Henry exist in this on a different level, right? You know, there are millions of voters that vote for Alex’s parents and they’re under public scrutiny at all times. And as an actor that’s playing make-believe. I don’t have that same level of scrutiny. It is similar, but those two are just on a different level. You know, they’re like, Prince Harry, Prince William status.”
“I think I just went straight into the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘as ifs’. In acting, there’s people that do the method acting, but I’m an ‘as if-er’.” A device utilised to dig deeper into a character, pushing the actor to ask ‘what if?’ or ‘as if?, building a story around the actions and words on a script. It’s a favourite tool of Zakhar Perez’s who learned the technique from acting coach Lesly Kahn.
After a childhood of recreating SNL sketches with his siblings, performing in theatre productions and trying his shot at Hollywood, Zakhar Perez expanded his craft considerably upon moving to Los Angeles, under the guidance of Kahn. “When I first got to LA as this little theatre kid, I was not ready to go into [audition] rooms. I feel so bad for every casting director that brought me in to watch me just crash and burn. And then going to Lesly’s, I learned about genre, given circumstances, how to analyse scenes and the inner monologue. Honestly, I never really understood the inner monologue. I don’t know why, I just think nobody ever explained it properly. With Lesly, she taught us that your inner monologue is just a thought train. And it was almost remedial. We’d sit in class and she would stop us in the middle of a monologue and say, ‘I don’t believe that. What’s your thought? What do you think?’ And sometimes, most times, I would go, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ And she’d be like, ‘Taaaylor, you need to know what you’re thinking. We are not memorising lines.’ He laughs, “People hate it, because actors love to sit in their feelings. That’s cathartic for them. They’re like, ‘Let me be emotional,’ but emotion without direction is chaos.”
For Red, White & Royal Blue, understanding the specificities of the part came in extensive research and character mapping. Diving headfirst into the mind of Alex, Zakhar Perez read Presidents’ biographies that his character would have read and stories from White House staff. He watched The West Wing and exhausted every avenue of Alex’s potential interests and psyche to build a “fully fledged, fully fleshed out character.” To keep his perception of the narrative coherent, amidst overlapping arcs and dynamic character development, he came up with an annotation method. With the help of Lopez, he charted Alex’s timeline in terms of his relationships with Henry and his parents, the campaign trail and his discovery of his sexuality. “Filming out of order is incredibly difficult when your character has such a big arc. And so through my script, I would have to annotate the varying levels of his relationships and journeys. There were so many layers to this guy. I had to keep referencing it.”
While the ‘as if’ method helps Zakhar Perez get into character, it also helps him get out, protecting his inner self and emotional state from becoming muddled with that of his characters. “[In contrast with method acting], I have just always found that the ‘as if’ method helped me not bring back old trauma. I never want to sacrifice my happiness for a role. And I never want to put people around me in a weird space if I’m in a bad mood because the character that I’m auditioning for that day is in a bad mood. I never want to bring that into my day to day life because I’ve met actors like that and honestly, it’s so unattractive to me. I chose this profession and it’s not worth losing your friends over. I have nothing against anyone’s method but don’t bring it into my trailer. Don’t bring that into my life. I protect my peace at all costs.”
It is rare to meet someone so pragmatic yet optimistic, down to earth but excited about his accelerating trajectory, and so capable of giving his entire self to a project, cast and crew yet equally able to leave work at the door and prioritise the people he loves. It’s impossible to miss the similarities between Zakhar Perez and his interpretation of the affable and propulsive journey of Alex. In offering a fresh dimension to the beloved novel and lead role, he honours its influence by making it his own and bringing it to a new audience who will take comfort and inspiration in its power. “I think we nailed it,” he tells me of one scene, but I think such an evaluation could apply to the film as a whole. “I hope we nailed it,” he continues, but with characteristic humility, “You can be the judge,” he concludes.
OUT MAGAZINE - Red, White & Royal Blue’s Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine discuss bringing heart and heat to the Amazon Prime Video queer rom-com.
Yearning for a queer romantic comedy with transatlantic intrigue? Then Red, White & Royal Blue is the film event of the season.Based on the beloved 2019 young adult novel of the same name by Casey McQuiston, Amazon Studios’ Red, White & Royal Blue tells the story of Alex Claremont-Diaz (played by Minx and The Kissing Booth alum Taylor Zakhar Perez), the first son of the United States, and his whirlwind romance with Henry, Britain’s young crown prince (played by Cinderella and Bottoms star Nicholas Galitzine).
While on its surface, the storyline may sound like a prime-time soap, this delicious, tension-filled, enemies-to-lovers tale is full of heart. And the new Prime Video film is grounded too, especially when it comes to the difficulties Alex and Henry face as two public figures hiding who they are — and who they love — from the world.
“After reading the book, it was like nothing else…I’ve ever read or seen before,” Zakhar Perez says when asked about bringing the nuances of McQuiston’s novel to life for the screen. “I took it as [McQuiston] challenging what was already out there. And I think they did a brilliant job of it. So when we were bringing these characters to life, we were like, If it’s convenient, if it’s cheesy, if it doesn’t serve the characters, if it doesn’t serve the storyline, if it skews public perception, we’re not gonna do it. And we were very diligent about [that rule].”
“Beyond the great love story, I think the thing that interests me as an actor in general is people completely trapped by circumstance and upbringing,” Galitzine says of playing a member of the British monarchy.
“I always like characters who have to kind of escape the bounds of their upbringing in some ways. It was a lot of fun,” he continues. “We had a royal correspondent on set, and getting to pick his brain in terms of how to imbue Henry with this sort of uptight stiffness that Alex is kind of like the antithesis of in some ways.… It was funny being able to shed those layers and, in a way, bring in that much-needed angst.”
The angst and the chemistry between Alex and Henry are real. Though they have an obvious disdain for each other in the film’s first act, an internationally embarrassing wedding cake incident forces the pair to spend more time together in public, pretending they are friends. The act, filled with forced smiles and staged photo ops, begins as a means to garner positive press — Alex’s presidential mother, played by screen icon Uma Thurman, is up for reelection. But the more Alex and Henry interact, the more they realize they actually like each other. And this chemistry was also curated behind the scenes.
“Taylor and I became mates immediately,” Galitzine recalls of working with Zakhar Perez. “We have the same sense of humor, and he’s just so funny. He’s so smart. He’s a very caring person, and we really saw eye to eye. When you’re friends with someone, it just makes the intimacy aspect of it all that much easier because you can trust in this person. I remember speaking to Matthew López, our director, and he really felt like gay sex often had been sort of misrepresented in film, and he wanted to make something that both lived within the ‘poppiness’ of the rom-com genre but also felt authentic and real.”
“We had an incredible intimacy coordinator, Robbie Taylor Hunt, who was very much integral in really giving me the language that I think I needed when it came to the intimacy and creating this really sweet, very hungry at times, bond,” Galitzine adds. “A really sweet and tender love between the two of them. It was a very caring set, and Taylor was also very, very helpful in that as well.”
“We both came into it with such a level of respect for the book and for the script and what we were there to create,” Zakhar Perez notes. “It wasn’t anybody’s show. It wasn’t Matthew saying, ‘This is my film, I’m doing it this way and you have to do it like this,’ and it wasn’t Nick coming in and going, ‘Well, I want to portray Henry this way.’ It wasn’t me coming in and going, ‘This is how Alex has to be.’ It was all of us collaboratively sitting together and talking it all out. This is where I like to come from, asking questions. I think that built our trust, that built our understanding and gave us the shorthand as soon as we got into filming.”
Red, White & Royal Blue’s queer magic can be attributed in large part to the film’s director and writer, López, the Tony-winning playwright behind The Inheritance. Having a gay creative at the helm was, as Galitzine puts it, “integral” to the narrative’s authenticity.
“Matthew is so communicative, and he’s so open as a person that there was really nothing off limits,” Galitzine says. “He was just really passionate and really hell-bent on telling Casey’s story, albeit in a slightly different way from the book. I think you always have to deviate in some capacity when you do a book-to-film adaptation. But we were talking before about people feeling seen, and that was always at the top of his agenda. I can’t really imagine anyone else directing it. His passion was so palpable every single day on set.”
And Zakhar Perez notes that he and López both come from the theater world, so there was already a shorthand between them in work style. “I love a vertically integrated writer-director,” he says. “I can go to them, ask the questions, get back to set, and I don’t have to do all this runaround. It’s like looking up something in the dictionary. He just created this togetherness and a safe space for all of us to play and be vulnerable and just set the tone for the entire summer. And I can’t say that about all directors I work with.”
With an already established fan base from the YA novel, Red, White & Royal Blue debuts at a unique time. There has never been so much LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream media. Yet the community remains under attack, especially when it comes to stigma from traditional society, something Alex and Henry know all too well. And while RWRB is indeed a lighthearted popcorn romance, it also has the power to change minds with its joyous portrayal of queer love.
“By the end of it, we’re gonna crack you open, and you’re going to love these two characters, love their journey together,” Zakhar Perez says. “Their character development throughout their arc is wonderful, individually and together.”“There is a lot of similarity between queer love and straight love,” Galitzine says.
“There’s something completely undeniable about the chemistry of Alex and Henry. The movie even recognizes it when the king of England, played by the amazing Stephen Fry…says, ‘It’s undeniable that the love is genuine.’ I think for people to see queer love portrayed as being the norm, I just really hope it can build bridges, and it can enlighten a lot of people who maybe haven’t grown up around a lot of queer people, who don’t have queer friends or don’t have access to the queer community. That’s the joy of working in the film industry in this day and age: the far reaches that these films can have and the people they can touch.”
TEEN VOGUE - Red, White & Royal Blue stars Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine couldn’t be less serious. In conversation, the banter is endless, the charm off the charts. They’re currently embroiled in a discussion about New Zealand vs. Australia. Zakhar Perez refers to New Zealand in conjunction with the “naur” meme and H2O Just Add Water, famously an Australian show, and it sets Galitzine spinning into laughter — before he schools his costar in the dynamic between the two countries.
There’s something of a schoolboy zest, darting wherever their brain cells move them in conversation, that makes you think of the cheeky conversations had over the trash can at school, sharpening pencils over and over again to gossip. They jokingly narrate the opening of our interview, even though we’re on a Zoom: “This is Taylor and I’m done talking,” Zakhar Perez throws down, and Galitzine picks it up, “Hi I’m Nick, I’m about to start speaking.”
Their onscreen story, an adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s novel of the same name, also begins in the least serious way possible. Three things are certain in life: Death, taxes, and the fact that a giant wedding cake is always going to come crashing down. Zakhar Perez, 31, is the devil-may-care Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son of the United States, while Nicholas Galitzine, 28, is the uptight, intellectual Prince Henry of Wales. They are, of course, enemies. Until that toppled wedding cake throws them, at speed, into a secret love connection, and we follow them as they navigate their politically-combustible romance as the young adults of the Western powers.
Zakhar Perez and Galitzine are not strangers to the romance scene, however. Fans will know the former from his role as Marco in The Kissing Booth 2 & 3; and the latter from Cinderella, opposite Camila Cabello, and Purple Hearts with Sofia Carson. There’s no shortage of star power either — Uma Thurman stars as Alex’s mother and the POTUS, Stephen Fry is the King, and Sarah Shahi makes a scene-stealing turn as Zahra.
In becoming Prince Henry, Galitzine asked the same questions that he has of any role that lands in his lap: are they complex, and three-dimensional? Is their story compelling? Henry’s gayness is a major factor of the film, and important to his character as he exists in the confines of the royal family, but Galitzine admired the script beyond Henry’s sexuality. “He felt really real. I felt like I empathized with him,” Galitzine tells Teen Vogue. “I didn’t really feel a pressure necessarily, in that capacity. It just felt like a really beautiful story.” While he didn’t read the novel before filming, as he treats the script as his bible, he’s since read McQuiston’s source material.
And Zakhar Perez? He certainly felt the pressure to tell the story right, given the groundswell of support from the novel’s fanbase. For him, it’s about the circumstances of the story, the genre of the film, and where we meet the character in their life. It’s also been about “being accurate with the storytelling,” Zakhar Perez tells Teen Vogue, because “if we are playing these roles — any role, but especially this — [in] a film that has the opportunity to change perceptions, internationally; in a film for everyone,” it has to be done right.
Director Matthew López says he had “two hours to take them on a journey from enemies to friends to lovers to world changers. Two hours to do that, and every second counted,” which accounts for some of the omissions from the novel. He had to be “ruthless” in order to tell that central story. López also says he can’t imagine anyone else playing Alex and Henry. “I think they came away understanding Alex and Henry even better than either Casey or I ever did.”
The film, like the novel, does something that disrupts the purity politics that can plague media — it lets the gay guys have sex, hence its R rating. When I suggest that sometimes we just want to see hot dudes f*ck, the duo roar with laughter. “I’m f*cking stoked that we classify as hot dudes as well, so internet high-five, Taylor,” Galitzine says. Zakhar Perez adds, “I say the movie serves it hot on a platter, if that’s what you want.”
The film is in constant conversation with gay sex and how it’s portrayed on screen. López wanted a range of scenes that “felt hot and animalistic and hungry, and then stuff to feel tender and a reflection of their love for each other,” Galitzine says.
It’s proof of the necessity of an intimacy coordinator on set, Zakhar Perez says: “We needed to see the different colors, the different shades, the different shades of gray through this” — he laughs at his own joke — “and we had to focus on that because you’re telling a sexual journey,” but also a journey that’s simultaneously personal, and also relationship-based.
“I really have to give Robbie [Taylor Hunt], our intimacy coordinator, his flowers,” Galitzine says. “Not having that language as Nick,” to be able to fully craft the scene in a comfortable way, “it’s really daunting and Robbie was so great.” Their collaboration became a process of “charting when to turn up the heat; what felt truthful in one scene, as opposed to maybe not right in the other.”
There’s an added flair in the film that grounds it firmly in reality, where condom wrappers lay strewn on the floor and lube sits on the nightstand post-sex. López says the condom use came from a logical line of questioning; Alex was not on PrEP, and with no secrets in the royal family, Henry likely couldn’t safely procure it. Thurman’s POTUS character even mentions PrEP by its brand name. “It was really important to me and to Uma that the scene took a surprising turn for Alex, that not only is mom totally cool with it, mom may in fact know even more than Alex about sexual health,” López says.
So maybe there is something serious, something impactful underneath the fun rom-com flair. A Trojan horse — or condom. Zakhar Perez offers a treatise on the very heart of the film: “Henry being a prince and having the King of England as his grandfather, and Alex being the First Son of the United States to Uma Thurman’s character, these are the leading authorities on everything throughout the world,” he says. “So when you look at [POTUS], accepting Alex for who he is, and what he’s saying that he’s going to do, and for Henry to fight with his grandfather to say, ‘this is what I want,’ because I love this person, and then accepting it. It’s a trickle down effect to everybody that’s living in those countries. And that’s how you create change.”
We start to speak about being in their profession, where being misunderstood and misrepresented is rife. “We are in the business of misconceptions,” Galitzine says. “As actors, we’re constantly playing these roles, and I think a lot of people associate us with the characters that we play.” Often, you’re portrayed “in this two-dimensional outline of a human being. We all have our own anxieties and struggles.” It has ironically made him more open with people. “I try and lead with vulnerability now, [with] candor… Being misperceived in that way is quite scary.”
For Zakhar Perez, he’s followed his own compass. It takes real guts to back yourself like that. To say, “No, I want to be a real actor, this is what I want to do.” To know, “This is not a one and done thing,” that “this is a dream that I will have forever. It’s my Everest.” It’s the first thing on his mind when he wakes up, and the last when he sleeps.
Climbing Kilimanjaro a few years back was “such a great metaphor for life.” He would wake up to the sight of the peak. Two hours later, a fog would set in; he’d hike for eight hours. He would see the peak again, this time drenched in the setting sun. “I’m going to the top of this f*cking mountain,” Zakhar Perez thought. People might mistake the dedication to his craft as “a little intense,” but “nobody’s going to knock me off the path because I choose this…I’m in it to win it. And I want to do this for the rest of my life.”
As our interview winds down, we take a moment for Zakhar Perez’s late sister, Kristy, and the profoundly moving words he wrote about her on his Instagram. “She was so excited to see it,” he says. She passed away just as the marketing campaign for the film began; the GQ article, the teaser and the trailer and the pictures — everything she missed. “She’s the oldest so she’d care about everything.” His voice is smiling now. She was full of questions: if he got to keep the outfits; how he could possibly memorize so many lines; and what Uma Thurman must be like — “She just wanted all the deets. She just wanted to be supportive, be there, be in on it.” A love like that never leaves. “It’s been a really hard time for my family. Family has always meant a lot to me and now it means even more.”
Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine have given life to these characters, and in return, Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince Henry have given them life lessons. “I would just say f*ck it,” Zakhar Perez says of his approach to life. Alex is “this bombastic, annoying, energetic over-the-top guy that sometimes doesn’t look before he leaps and puts people into different predicaments that they probably shouldn’t be put into, but he just doesn’t care…I wish we could all just be, you know, out there like that.” And Galitzine: “It sounds so cheesy to say but honestly, it’s being true to yourself, to be honest, like living your truth. Life’s too f*cking short,” he says, “Life’s too short to hide yourself. Be courageous for love.”
