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July 31, 2008

Actor Daniel Craig to Play Bisexual Emperor

Daniel Craig has signed on to portray a bisexual Roman emperor in an upcoming film, reports Ireland's Daily Star.

Hadrian, who ruled the Roman Empire from 117 to 138 A.D, allegedly had an affair with a teenage Greek boy, Antinuos, while married.

British filmmaker John Boorman reportedly is cowriting the screenplay, adapted from the Marguerite Yourcenar novel Memoris of Hadrian, and plans to direct the film, reports the United Press International.

British production company Handmade Films has signed on to finance the film, according to Variety.com, and has a budget of between $50 million and $60 million. (The Advocate)

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

  • Name: Isolde
    Date posted: 2008-10-29 10:50 PM
    Hometown: Andalusia Alabama

    Comment:

    Not all men engaged in sexual acts with what we consider "underage". I think that it was an accepted practice in that time period. Not only Romans. Some cultures groomed boys who were "pleasing to the eye" for sex with men. Gays have been around for a long time. They only became hidden when Christianity began to spread.


  • Name: Richard Michael
    Date posted: 2008-08-01 5:45 PM
    Hometown: Bayside, Queens, NY

    Comment:

    I'm more fascinated by Daniel Craig....didn't he say that James Bond (who he has portrayed) should have a male lover?


  • Name: Cellinda
    Date posted: 2008-08-01 12:50 AM
    Hometown: New York

    Comment:

    I know many movies, plays, etc. about bisexual. Not sure if the director will request the real bisexual for the role, or the straight? If the straight, how can they know the life of bisexual? And after playing the bisexual role, will they become bisexual or bicurious? I know many bicurious and real bisexual on BiLoves dotcom.


  • Name: Jeff
    Date posted: 2008-08-01 12:30 AM
    Hometown: Seattle

    Comment:

    Relationships between young and older men in history were more mentorships with physical aspects after the younger became sexually mature. Its not likely that Hadrian and Antinuos had sex when he was 11. That part of the relationship came later when it was participitory for both men. There was nothing "childlike" about a 17 year old man back then. You have to remember that at 17, a male human was approaching middle age. Life and morality was different then and passing modern judgements on classical figures is ignorant and narrow minded.


  • Name: Dustin
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 10:57 PM
    Hometown: Charleston, SC

    Comment:

    I didn't assert that we should coddle anyone. I instead asked if Hadrian is bisexual? Modern notions of bisexuality do not translate to the past. Please check facts on Antinous, no historical records exist on him at 17. Louis Crompton, a historian, in Homosexuality and Civilization mentions that we only know for certain that "he went with Hadrian on a tour of Egypt and that he drowned in the Nile at the age of 18 or 19." Some argue that he could have been picked up as early as 11. While I consent that seventeen was an adult, 11 is disturbing; moreover, who would have said no to Hadrian, knowing it wasn't a choice? For those who idolize Classical sexuality, we should remember that bearded men penetrated, others got penetrated - shaving discouraged. No sexual choice. Yep, doesn't sound anything like modern day bisexuality; sounds like pederasty - like it or not. I choose not to glorify the past or link it to the history of identities that did not exist then.


  • Name: Armchair Historian
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 9:14 PM
    Hometown: DC

    Comment:

    Dustin - maybe when you build your time-machine you can jump back to the Roman period and tell them what "underage" means. Until then, maybe you should wake up to the fact that WAY BACK WHEN (and still in some Southern States) there was no such thing as underage. Marriages were arranged as early as 13 or 14. Hell, the lifespan back then was barely 30 or 40. Waiting until 21 to have sex meant that most of your years of reproduction was well past you. Just because we coddle and overprotect our young doesn't mean their society did. They had to grow up fast - and they did. Another thing to realize was that boys were looked on as "fun" and women were looked on as "duty".


  • Name: Doug Johnson
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 9:13 PM
    Hometown: Sioux Falls, SD

    Comment:

    At 17 years of age Hadrian's lover, Antinuos, had his balls in operation long enough to be an adult. And in that time and era sex with a young 17-year-old man - and I stress man, not child - was an acceptable thing. Now we throw uo our hands in horror at what was commonplace then.


  • Name: Jacob G
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 5:42 PM
    Hometown: Lexington

    Comment:

    Why do heterosexuals always get the gay roles? For thousands of years heterosexuals oppressed gay people. Have we completely ignored that? I am sick of heterosexual people defining what gay people are.


  • Name: Evan
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 5:16 PM
    Hometown: Riverside, CA

    Comment:

    CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT! We have to remember that the ancient world did not live according to our Victorian sexual mores, neither did they live in a society like the modern world. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not find intercourse with those of the same sex to be unusual behavior. Bi-sexuality is a modern label for something that every one of us (regardless of where we fall on the "Kinsey scale") would probably have been involved in. Sexual pleasure and the civic responsibility of procreation were very different things.


  • Name: Dustin
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 2:37 PM
    Hometown: Charleston, SC

    Comment:

    Why does sleeping with an under age male qualify as bisexuality, or homosexuality for that matter? Linking statutory rape or child abuse to the history of bisexuality reifies the belief that LGBT people are child molesters. Is that kind of publicity worth the 30 million? Hadrian did not identify as bisexual so what separates him from the Men who Sleep with Men (MSM) community today? Or maybe it should instead be portrayed as pederasty, which it was? These are fine lines we walk for entertainment parading around as history. A man who sleeps with men and women does not a bisexual make. It requires that person to identify as such. A man who sleeps with an adolescent is, to use current terminology, a rapist.


  • Name: chandler in lasvegas
    Date posted: 2008-07-31 1:49 PM
    Hometown: lasvegas

    Comment:

    Hadrian, bi? That's like saying that every gay man that got married to have a family is bi. Interesting how after they divorce their wives, how totally gay they are. Sorry, Hadrian, homosexual who had obligatory sex with women. Hadrian bi, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!


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