James Marsden Talks About His Gay Sex Scene With Jack Black In The D-Train

It’s already sounding like a brief scene in The D-Train might court a bit of controversy when the movie expands beyond festival screenings. Those who saw the movie at its Sundance Premiere already seems unsure whether James Marsden and Jack Black having sex together is a cheap, gay-panic punchline, or whether it’s a smart way to lay-bare the hypocrisy behind many bromance movies, which take things to the cusp of sexual love while constantly pretending that it isn’t by making vaguely homophobic jokes.

The D-Train revolves around Black’s character trying score some points by ensuring that the class ‘celebrity’, played by Marsden, comes back to their hometown to attend the high school reunion. Marsden’s character is bisexual and as his bromance with Black grows, it results in them making out and then a briefly shown sex scene.

Apparently they waited to the very end of filming to shoot that sex scene, with Marsden telling Variety, “It seemed like we were saving it for celebration time,” before adding that what he liked about it is that, “In comedy you feel like you’ve seen it all and this was so subversive.”

As to why the sex scene – which causes Black’s character a lot of soul-searching in the second half of the movie – is so brief, director Jarrad Paul comments, “We always thought that less was more,” with his co-director Andrew Mogel adding, “Ultimately we decided it was best as a quick pop.”

It’ll certainly be interesting what reactions the actual sex scene – which Variety decribes as being ‘shot in a few brief and blurry seconds’, but with a preceding make-out scene causing ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing laughter’ – causes as it reaches a wider audience. Bi-curiosity is certainly an underexplored area on film, but it’s yet to be seen whether this is the movie to do it justice.