How The Matador's Bisexual Hit Man Missed the Gay Target

When the independently produced film The Matador hit theaters last December after a successful, high-profile film festival run, it was trumpeted as a career-expanding performance for actor Pierce Brosnan. His dissolute, wild-living, hit man looking for redemption was deemed "the anti-Bond" and "time-capsule worthy," and Roger Ebert said it was "the best performance Pierce Brosnan has ever given."

The film eventually earned Brosnan a Golden Globe nomination, and gave its writer-director, Richard Shepard, new Hollywood power.

At the time of the film's release, press surrounding the film implied that a certain amount of The Matador's daring came from the sexuality of Brosnan's character, Julian Noble, who was often reported as bisexual. But in the film itself, that kind of sexuality is nowhere to be found.

A couple of months after the film was released, a quote from Pierce Brosnan about the film was circulated widely (reported on GayWired.com and other outlets), in which he discussed gay content that had, in fact, been cut.

"I don't regret it, not at all - even with Brokeback's success," Brosnan is quoted as telling reporters about the deleted same-sex content. "The original problem was the director [Shepard] threw everything at it, including the kitchen sink. It was too much. It came on full tilt. I felt the bisexual references took away from the ambiguity of his [Julian Noble's] sexuality. I just got it toned down."

Anyone hoping for a more in-depth explanation and some of the excised material on the DVD will be out of luck. Except for a deleted scene where Brosnan briefly ogles a young male waiter, the more than four hours of extras and commentary yield no information about what happened to early gay content in the film - or if it even existed.

How and why does the gay sexuality of a character or a film so often disappear by the time it reaches the public? Was that the case with this film? For answers, AfterElton.com went to Richard Shepard, the writer and director behind the genre-blending Matador.

Currently on location in Croatia beginning work on his next film, tentatively titled Spring Break in Bosnia, starring Richard Gere and Terrence Howard, Shepard openly discussed The Matador and the issues of sexuality that it raised.

When asked how a straight guy (Shepard's wife has a cute, 5-second cameo in the film) ended up making a movie about a bisexual hit man, Shepard first took issue with the term bisexual. "I called him a trisexual," says Shepard. "Bowie's old joke. He'd try anything."