“I believe in being able to show the love in all different ways and if you can’t kiss your friends… life is too short not to,” Bailey said of the smooching.
Jonathan Bailey
is all for giving his friends a smooch, because, hey, you only live once.
The
Wicked
star has made headlines and a splash on social media in recent weeks for publicly kissing his
Jurassic World Rebirth
costar
Scarlett Johansson
, including in view of her husband of nearly five years,
Saturday Night Live
star
Colin Jost
.
First, the two shared a quick kiss at the film’s world premiere in London on Tuesday, June 17, and then again at the New York premiere on Monday.
Bailey, who is openly gay, addressed the kissing later at the same premiere in the Big Apple. “Absolutely, I believe in being able to show the love in all different ways and if you can’t kiss your friends… life is too short not to,”
he told
Entertainment Tonight
of kissing Johansson.
He also gushed to the outlet about working with Johansson and fellow costar
Mahershala Ali
on the dinosaur blockbuster. “Amazing. The people that you meet along the way make extraordinary experiences even better, and her and Mahershala, it’s been amazing to get back together and to celebrate all of the experiences we had on the screen,” he said, adding, “But Scarlett is endlessly fun, hilarious, sensitive, intelligent, and Mahershala is just, they’re both icons, and I’m very lucky to be a part of their tribe.”
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Bailey has also spoken about the “weight” he feels co-leading the massive franchise film as an out gay man, telling
The Hollywood Reporter
recently, “There’s moments where, yes, you have to be excellent to prove that you can do it. And it’s not like I haven’t felt that. There’s the weight of history, and there’s endless brilliant people who have come before you who have changed the way that people see sexuality.”
“Any sort of sense of prejudice against sexuality is something to fight against, and what better way to do that than to go and play any kind of character,” he continued. “Being an out gay actor, historically, meant that you wouldn’t be able to play straight and there weren’t any gay parts to play anyway. That’s obviously changed massively.”
The latest in the
Jurassic Park
saga, which first began in 1993,
Jurassic World Rebirth
picks up five years after the events of 2022’s
Jurassic World Dominion.
In it, stars Bailey, Johansson, and Ali find themselves on a mission to track down the surviving dinos in order to obtain their DNA before they once more face extinction. To do so, they end up stranded on an island that was the first research headquarters for the original Jurassic Park, which has since become home to all the now-mutated (and, naturally, terrifying) “failed attempts” at dinosaurs that didn’t pan out for the original planned attraction.
Directed by
Gareth Edwards
, the film also stars Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (
The Lincoln Lawyer
), Luna Blaise (
Manifest
), David Iacono (
The Summer I Turned Pretty
), Audrina Miranda (
Lopez vs. Lopez
), Philippine Velge (
Station Eleven
), Bechir Sylvain (
BMF
), and Ed Skrein (
Deadpool
).
Jurassic World Rebirth
hits theaters July 2.
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