How Nimona broke barriers with a charming same-sex kiss
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Warning: This story contains minor spoilers for Nimona.
The cast and filmmakers of Nimona are opening up about the film's ground-breaking queer kiss.
Nimona (out now on Netflix) is based on ND Stevenson's beloved web-comic-turned-graphic-novel, about a chaotic shape-shifter (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz) living in a futuristic medieval world. But the film has also made headlines for its casual queer representation: Nimona herself is gender non-conforming, and the film features a romance between two male knights, Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed) and Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang). It's the rare family friendly animated film that's also unapologetically queer, and the movie ends with Ballister and Ambrosius sharing a tender kiss.
It's a major moment, but the filmmakers and cast tell EW that because Ballister and Ambrosius' relationship is so central to the story, ending Nimona with a kiss felt like a no-brainer.
"It's fascinating that there's so much focus on something like a kiss because for us and a lot of audience members — not even queer-identifying audience members — it's just normal," Yang explains. "It just makes sense for the characters. The whole time you see them, you're like, well, y'all have definitely kissed a lot! Y'all are kissing all the time whenever the camera's not on you! So having that nice kiss at the end, it's so casual, but it feels so earned and normal."
Netflix Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), Nimona (Chloe Grace Moretz), and Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang) in 'Nimona'
"I understand this is a big win and a big moment representation-wise, and we're all so proud of that," Ahmed adds. "But I think those moments only feel like real wins when they're not tokenized, when they are actually there because of the emotional truth of the character. When we are honoring these characters as human, that's when it feels real, you know?"
The romance between Ballister and Ambrosius was always a key part of Stevenson's graphic novel, which follows the two men as they realize they have feelings for each other. The film makes their bond more obvious, and when Nimona begins, the two knights are already in a relationship. Directors Troy Quane and Nick Bruno (Spies in Disguise) explain that they never wanted to "dance around" Ballister and Ambrosius' relationship, especially when their love for each other drives so much of the plot.
"Throughout the whole movie, our job was to try to show these characters and relationships in a truthful, honest, and authentic way," Quane explains.
"If you take sex or gender out of the equation, narratively, what would you want to see?" Bruno adds. "When the hero gets back to the person they love and has gone through this journey, [a kiss] would be your answer."
These days, queer themes and characters aren't a complete rarity in mainstream animation. Just in the last few years, studio films like 2021's The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Sony/Netflix), as well as 2022's Lightyear (Pixar) and Strange World (Walt Disney Animation Studios) have all featured prominently queer characters. This month, Pixar also released Elemental, featuring a minor character who's non-binary. There's even more LGBTQ representation on the TV side, particularly in shows like Steven Universe and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the latter also created by Stevenson. (Both of those shows have ended in recent years.)
But Nimona is noteworthy for how its queerness is so central to the story — and how it almost didn't happen at all. Originally, the film began at animation studio Blue Sky, before Disney bought Blue Sky's parent company Fox. Disney later shut down the studio, effectively killing Nimona, and in 2022, anonymous Blue Sky staffers told Business Insider that Disney executives were particularly concerned about the same-sex kiss. The film, kiss included, was later rescued by Annapurna and Netflix, who distributed the final version.
Stevenson explains that he wasn't involved personally in those conversations, but he praised Quane and Bruno for never wavering and always fighting to include the Ballister/Ambrosius romance.
"From my point of view, I know there were fights being had to try to keep it," explains Stevenson, who came out as transmasculine and bi-gender in March 2021. "Fortunately, I was pretty sheltered from that. I'm no stranger to pushing for queer representation in media, but it's a hard fight, and when you're queer yourself, it's also a very personal one. It's hard not to take it personally when someone is saying, 'That's not appropriate.' And it's like, 'Well, that's my life. Am I not appropriate?'"
"Nick and Troy really fought for this," Stevenson adds. "I was just so grateful to them for how much they believed in it and that I didn't have to be the one to do that. It just meant the world to me to have people fighting so hard for this because it's such an important part of the story. These characters don't make sense without it. But from my point of view, I didn't have to be the one pushing for that, and that was really important to me."
Ultimately, the kiss itself is a surprisingly normal, low-key moment — and the cast and filmmakers say that's exactly the point. "It just felt very natural and organic, and I think that's what's so cool about it," Ahmed says. "It's not trying to make a point or beat a drum, but it's not trying to hide something or sweep it under the carpet. It's about the emotional truth of the characters, first and foremost."
"I thought it was maybe going to be something where it was like hyper-dramatic, and it was going to be really over the top," Yang adds. "I love that it was almost just like: 'Hey, babe. I just got back from Trader Joe's. What are you up to?'"
Nimona is streaming now on Netflix.
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