‘Luca’ Was Nearly a Gay Love Story Says Disney/Pixar Director Enrico Casarosa

The director of Disney/Pixar’s hit summer movie Luca says it was very nearly a love story in one iteration during development.

The Wrap: Director Enrico Casarosa has said that he discussed the two main characters having a romantic relationship in the animated adventure. Released in June, the Disney/Pixar film focuses on the friendship between two young boys, Luca and Alberto, in Italy.

Casarosa has said in previous interviews that the film was based on his platonic friendship with another boy growing up, but many viewers said that they felt there was a romantic connection between Luca and Alberto.

In fact, Casarosa said that when they were making the movie they were thinking more about race than sexuality. “Because like, hey, how many different ways as kids we can feel like outsiders. It’s so various. And 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,” Casarosa 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.”

Less than a month after its release actor Jack Dylan Grazer came out as bisexual. The teenage actor delivered his truth during a fan Q&A on an Instagram Live broadcast. Likely spurred by fans and critics likening “Luca” to an LGBTQ-coded coming-of-age story, a fan asked Grazer if they were gay during the session. Grazer simply replied, “I’m bi.” They followed that by delivering his “Luca” character’s, Alberto Scorfano, catchphrase “Silencio, Bruno!”

jack dylan grazer coming out as bi and then immediately shouting SILENZIO BRUNO good for them good for them!! pic.twitter.com/IBKDox5a2G

— alyssa (@alyssakayden) July 1, 2021

Grazer’s use of the “Silenzio, Bruno” phrase after coming out speaks is apt as it centers the film’s message of overcoming self-doubt and insecurity to live and experience life as the person you know yourself to be. “We kept on talking about Alberto as being the ‘You can do this. You can,’ as opposed to the voices that tell you ‘You can’t do it. What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here,’” “Luca” director Enrico Casarosa told GamesRadar. “We knew that we wanted Alberto to help Luca… and the metaphor was, truthfully, a literal and metaphorical push off of a cliff.”

Fans latched onto Grazer’s announcement and the use of the catchphrase, using it in celebrating the “It,” “We Are Who We Are” and “Shazam!” star’s statement.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods will arriver in theaters next summer. Luca is streaming on Disney+..