Willow stars Ruby Cruz and Erin Kellyman break down that epic love scene
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Warning: This article contains spoilers about Willow episode 5.
It didn't take us long to make Kit (Ruby Cruz) and Jade (Erin Kellyman) our Willow OTP.
But things moved to the next level on Wednesday's episode of the Disney+ fantasy series, as truth plums forced the princess and her knight to confess their love for each other and then share a magical kiss (to the soundtrack of "Crimson and Clover," naturally).
This relationship, and particularly a scene and kiss of this nature, are a big step forward for Disney and Lucasfilm, who have historically preferred to make LGBTQ characters more implicit than explicit (if present in their storytelling at all). Though showrunner Jonathan Kasdan did previously tell EW that he received no pushback whatsoever from Disney or Lucasfilm over the storyline.
"When I learned that Jade was queer, that was what drew me in," Kellyman tells EW, who has also appeared in Solo: A Star Wars Story and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier under the Disney banner. "Representation in general isn't great for queer people — to be one of Disney's first queer storylines was a full circle moment for me because I grew up watching Disney as a kid and I'm queer. To be able to bring both of those aspects together was a really great moment."
Cruz echoes her costar's sentiments, adding that she also appreciates that being queer isn't an obstacle for Kit and Jade in the storytelling. "It's not talked about as something that is a hurdle for them to get through," Cruz says. "Their relationship is part of the show in a natural, authentic way, instead of having it be this thing that these characters need to get through. Instead, it's them trying to understand their feelings for each other and just them falling in love, which is so special."
Though Kit and Jade have clearly shared feelings for each other since the first episode of the series (Kit gave Jade a kiss goodbye before attempting to run away), episode 5 marked the first chance they really had to examine and confess their feelings, before sealing it all with a kiss.
Cruz remembers her emotional reaction to reading the scene for the first time, saying, "I was in bits. I'm just an emotional person."
"I remember reading it in my apartment," she continues. "I was across the hall from Erin. We were living across from each other. I remember bawling my eyes out and running over to her apartment and knocking on the door and being like, 'Have you read this?' And both of us freaking out over it. They're going through so much for the first five episodes that they don't really have time to address their feelings for each other. With the help of truth plums, they finally figure things out and are able to be honest with each other and with themselves."
Kellyman says that level of excitement carried over the the table read of the script, where much of the rest of the cast discovered the moment for the first time. "We've been rooting for them from the get-go, me and Ruby personally, but also the whole cast," she remembers. "Me and Ruby had read it already, and we lost our s---. But we were all reading it live together, doing a table read, and it was pretty calm. Then the energy got so tense and live when the scene started happening."
Lucasfilm
"Everybody was screaming and shouting," Kellyman continues. "Tony [Revolori] got up, and he was like, 'Holy s---, holy s---.' From from the start, everybody has been on Kit and Jade's side, so when they finally admitted their feelings to each other, it was a very satisfying moment."
When it came to actually shooting the scene, Kellyman and Cruz are both full of praise for their director, Philippa Lowthorpe. "She wanted to give our characters and us the privacy that we needed," Cruz says. "She created a closed set for these characters to be able to be really vulnerable with each other. That was really helpful."
The scene also includes stunt work for Cruz, requiring her to be on a wire for a stunt as danger interrupts their kiss. But Lowthorpe made sure they shot the more intimate scenes first. "Once that was covered, it was then easier to film that part again as Ruby gets shot up into the air without being super distracting," adds Kellyman.
Episode 5 also came with a revelation for Jade that could prove a sticking point for her and Kit. Though she has always believed her parents were killed, she is actually a Bone Reaver, and her father was killed by Kit's dad, Madmartigan (Val Kilmer). But Kellyman is optimistic it won't prove too much of a speed-bump.
"Jade is a strong believer that they're different people," she reflects. "They're not their fathers and they run things differently now. It's not directly Kit's fault that that happened; it's just something that happened. Kit is going through a whole different thing in dealing with her father as well. They both have difficult home lives, so maybe it could bring them together. She definitely wouldn't hold that against Kit."
But that doesn't mean Jade is equipped to deal with the fact that her entire identity and past are not what Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) have led her to believe they are. Or the prospect of having to potentially choose between her loyalty to Kit and the crown and her new life as a Bone Reaver.
"Jade pushes all of her feelings and emotions down," reflects Kellyman. "I don't think she deals with them too well, and it stems from having these feelings for Kit, but also getting told as a knight that you can't really go there with the princess. You have to have that boundary in between you. It stems from that and also like thinking that her family had been killed. She doesn't know anybody that can relate to that. It's just a really sad fact. So, she gets used to pushing everything down."
"I don't think it changes here," she continues. "She finds out that she's a Bone Reaver, and you see her change a little bit. She becomes a little bit more free and loose and her ideas of things definitely change, but her coping mechanism remains. She doesn't really cope or deal with the fact that Sorsha's lied to her."
New episodes of Willow drop every Wednesday on Disney+.
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