At least one Marvel Cinematic Universe character that audiences are already familiar with is gay, and Marvel will reveal that character’s identity, or a completely new gay character, in an upcoming film, according to “Avengers: Endgame” directors Anthony and Joe Russo.
The Russo Brothers dropped the news Wednesday during an interview on EW Morning Live. While talking about Joe Russo’s cameo in “Endgame,” in which he played a gay man in a Thanos-Snap-survivors support group, EW asked if that was Marvel’s first gay character.
“Yes, openly gay,” Russo replied. “There’ve been insinuations about other characters’ sexuality, but this is the first openly gay character.”
But before you ask who they’re talking about, the Russos wouldn’t actually name names. “Uhhh, we’re gonna find out,” Joe Russo said when asked straight up “who else is gay?”
“That’s a story for another day,” Anthony Russo said.
“There is a gay character coming up in one of their films, and I think Kevin will make that announcement, I’m sure pretty soon,” Joe Russo added.
That ambiguity is in line with Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, who said last summer that there will be openly LGBTQ characters in future MCU films, and those characters will be “both ones you’ve seen and ones you haven’t seen.”
At least one of the ones we haven’t seen has already been announced, however. According to a casting breakdown for Marvel’s upcoming “The Eternals,” a character called “James” will be “openly gay/bisexual.” The film will be directed by Chloe Zhao and currently stars Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani and Dong-seok Ma.
As for the “insinuations” about existing characters, the most likely candidate is Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson in “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Endgame.” Thompson herself said in 2017 that Valkyrie is bisexual just like her comic book counterpart, and “Thor: Ragnarok” director Taika Waititi says he ended up cutting a scene from the film that made it official.
Watch the full interview with the Russo Brothers above.