Hot off the critical acclaim for his darkly comedic drama May December, trailblazing queer filmmaker Todd Haynes began teasing his next movie last year: An “intense” 1930s-set gay love story about two men fleeing from LA to Mexico.
Seeing that it’s a queer period-piece romance, excited fans have already jokingly dubbed it “Carol for men”—referring to Haynes’ 2015 film with Cate Blanchett & Rooney Mara—but it sounds like this upcoming feature will be decidedly more… explicit.
Haynes says the film is based off an idea from Joaquin Phoenix, who is attached to star. Apparently, the actor’s been encouraging the director to push the film into “dangerous” sexual territory, and that it’ll “likely” be rated NC-17—which we have to imagine means lots of explicit nudity!
Your dose of fabulosi-TEA
Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.
We’ve heard precious few details about the yet-to-be-titled film since last fall, but now a new name has been confirmed to star opposite Phoenix and things are really heating up.
According to Deadline, Danny Ramirez has signed on as the film’s other romantic lead, an actor best known for his roles in the 2022 blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick and as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Joaquin Torres, a hero set to assume the mantle of Falcon in next year’s Captain America: Brave New World.
In other words, the 28-year-old Ramirez’s career is on fire, and it’s pretty cool to think that one of the MCU’s next big superheroes apparently has no qualms diving head-first into an erotic gay love story.
Related*
Gay filmmaker Todd Haynes’ debut was an erotic prison drama, body horror, and tabloid fodder all in one
In his controversial feature debut, Todd Haynes offered up a cinematic threeway on “otherness.”
Original reports seemed to imply Phoenix would play a corrupt cop, while the other character was intended to be Native-American. Ramirez, was born in Southern California and is of Mexican and Colombian descent, so it’s possible some story details have changed since he was brought on board.
And that’s truly all we know about the film so far! But it’s clear that the words “Danny Ramirez gay romance” are enough to get some people excited. Here’s what Gay Twitter™ has to say about the announcement:
Clearly, the rising star already has plenty of fans.
Danny Ramirez’s other LGBTQ+ film
In the TV world, Ramirez’s credits include Orange Is The New Black, Black Mirror, On My Block, Fox’s short-lived X-Men series The Gifted, and Disney+’s The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, which first introduced him as Marvel’s Joaquin Torres. He was also recently tapped for a key role in Season 2 of HBO’s hit apocalyptic drama The Last of Us.
Aside from Top Gun: Maverick (and the sequel’s homoerotic beach football scene), his film roles include Sam Levinson’s pre-Euphoria darkly comedic horror Assassination Nation, the musical Valley Girl remake, the underrated thriller No Exit, and Claire Denis’ romantic drama Stars At Noon.
But, for our purposes, what’s most interesting about Ramirez is that the upcoming Todd Haynes project won’t actually be his first time in a queer movie…
Ramirez can currently be seen in indie filmmaker Jac Cron’s feature debut, Chestnut, the story of a recent college grad (Stranger Things‘ Natalia Dyer) who gets tangled up in a bisexual love triangle with a couple (Ramirez and Legion‘s Rachel Keller)—a FMF situation-ship that we like to refer to as a “reverse Challengers.”
The romantic drama—which is currently playing in select cinemas and is available digitally via Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video—lets Ramirez be all sexy and brooding, which proves he’s totally got the chops to go toe-to-toe (or maybe even ****-to-****) with Joaquin Phoenix in “Carol for men.”
Interestingly, Todd Haynes initially said the role played by Ramirez was “probably” going to be played by “a discovery.” And, given his impressive run of credits in the past decade, it’s not like the actor is some newbie.
But, given the nature of the “audacious” gay love story, we have a feeling it will be introducing Danny Ramirez to a whole new audience—particularly queer cinephiles with a thing for total hunks.
And if you’re not already convinced you need to see Ramirez in an erotic queer film, allow us to help you out:
Related*
Inspired by ‘Challengers,’ here are 10 steamy queer cinematic threeways (& more!) to stream right now
As Britney Spears once said, “One, two, three / Not only you and me.”
Anuraty
Oh woooooooooow!!!!
Invader7
Yes.. Dan is inspiring, to put it mildly !!
m
Hot! I remember him from Marvel’s The Gifted.
barryaksarben
such a good looking man Id run away to Mexico with hi or anywhere else
linedrive
Good gawd he’s pretty