Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director JA Bayona has revealed why a scene in which the character Zia reveals she is a lesbian was cut from the film.
Bayona said it ‘broke the pace of the whole movie’ in an interview with Yahoo Movies.
‘We always thought of Zia as lesbian,’ he said. ‘No one forced us to do that [cut], it was just totally a decision taken for the pace of the scene’.
In June, actress Daniella Pinedaher said her character Zia, a paleo-veterinarian, was meant to come out as gay in the film.
She told Yahoo! Entertainment that the scene came early on in the film, when she and dinosaur expert Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) are in the ‘getting to know you stages.’
‘I look at Chris and I’m like: “Yeah, square jaw, good bone structure, tall, muscles,’” Pineda said. “‘I don’t date men, but if I did, it would be you. It would gross me out, but I’d do it.”’
She said her character’s sexuality wasn’t ‘relevant to the story, but it was a little glimmer into who she is.’
Boyona this week said it was ‘important’ that the role was there in the movie, ‘What she is representing, it is totally there in the film’.
Netizens upset by the decision to cut to LGBTI representation from the film took to twitter to express outrage when it was revealed in June:
lmao apparently they cut the one line in JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM clarifying that one of the characters is a lesbian so, y'know, Hollywood's still doing Hollywood in case anyone needed an update on that.
— A.B. Allen (@A_B_Allen) June 19, 2018
