The New Mutants features a love story between Wolfbane and Dani Moonstar, played by Maisie Williams and Blu Hunt.
Long-delayed X-Men spin-off The New Mutants has a beautiful same-sex love story at its core, for a character played by Maisie Williams.
The film, which was shot in 2017 but had its release stalled by Disney’s acquisition of Fox, adds some long-needed visible queerness to the X-Men film universe – which, aside from R-rated spin-off Deadpool, has largely kept any hint of LGBT+ visibility contained within a laborious mutant-y metaphor.
However, The New Mutants busts out of the closet in style – with werewolf Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, played by Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams, romantically entangled with the psychic mutant Dani Moonstar, played by Blu Hunt.
Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams: Same-sex love story builds on the comics
Maisie Williams told Entertainment Weekly that the plot is “a real extension of what is touched on in the comics,” adding: “Rahne and Dani have a telepathic connection in the comics, and so we just wanted to extend that in the film and put that within reality.
“If they really could understand each other on that level, then you’d probably end up falling in love with that person.”
The Game of Thones star added: “It’s not really a story about these two characters understanding their sexuality. It’s not centered around that and they don’t really necessarily label it.
“No one else does either and no one really questions it.”
The New Mutants director Josh Boone feels a personal connection to the plot arc
Director Josh Boone told the outlet that the plot arc is “sort of the spine and focus of some of the character-driven stuff in the film.”
The director added that he and screenwriter Knate Lee both had a personal connection to the backstory of Williams’ character, who in the comics faces exorcisms to attempt to ‘cure’ her mutant powers.
He said: “We [both grew up] in the Bible Belt. It was as red as it could get back then… I remember watching My Own Private Idaho when I was 11 or 12 and being like, ‘Maybe the people at church are wrong about gay people.’ I always felt a bit like an outsider.
“I’ve certainly had my head put in the toilet when I was a kid at school, had bullies chase us around, had oppressive things that I guess just made me more sensitive to things like that. So, we like to try to push anything [like Rahne and Dani] forward as much as possible.”
Williams added: “My upbringing was very similar to the way I live my life now and I hadn’t had to go through any shedding of any things from my past
“So, the fact that he felt so strongly about that and spoke about it so passionately made me want to do a good job for him, really, and I trusted a lot in him and the stories he spoke about.”