Luca director says they considered making Luca and Alberto explicitly gay

11 January 2022, 13:08

LUCA Official Trailer

By Sam Prance

Many fans of Luca believe that the movie is a queer-coded gay love story.

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Luca director Enrico Casarosa has revealed that there were conversations about possibly making Luca an explicitly gay film.

As soon as Luca came out last year, LGBTQ+ viewers immediately connected with the Disney+ movie. Luca tells the story of a teenage sea monster who can assume human form and dreams of exploring life outside of the water. In the film, he meets Alberto, another teenage sea monster who shows him what the world is like on land.

Many people praised the film's queer-coding. Luca and Alberto grow close and make plans to get a Vespa and travel the world together. They also often hold hands and look at each other longingly. Not to mention, they face prejudice from humans for being different and have to hide who they are from them.

Enrico previously asserted that their relationship is platonic but he's now confirmed that he considered making it romantic.

Luca director says they considered making Luca and Alberto explicitly gay. Picture: Disney+

Speaking to The Wrap about whether there were any plans to give Luca and Alberto an explicit romance, Enrico let slip: "We talked about it." The director then said: "I think the reason probably we didn’t talk about it as much and, to a certain degree, we’re slightly surprised by the amount of people talking about romance is that we were really focusing on friendship."

However, Enrico continued: "But it is a kind of love, right? There’s a lot of hugging and it’s physical and my experience as a straight man certainly wasn’t that. The things we did talk a lot about is what is the metaphor here for being a sea monster, for being different?"

Enrico added: "And some people seem to get mad that I’m not saying yes or no, but I feel like, well, this is a movie about being open to any difference."

via GIPHY

Enrico went on to say: "My version was certainly, we were two geeks, losery, and so it’s not where I was coming from but it’s so wonderful and even more powerful for the LGBTQ+ community who has felt so much of as an outsider, right, where this is so real and stronger than my experience, I’m sure to have to grow up with that kind of a difference."

He also said. "I felt really honored and I don’t like to say yes or no. I can say, well, that’s not how we wrote it. It wasn’t my experience, but I love that that metaphor is reading in all these different ways."

In other words, whether or not Luca and Alberto's relationship is romantic is open to interpretation.