James Gunn confirms that Peacemaker isn't straight and that the idea to open up the character's sexual orientation actually came from John Cena. After first appearing in last summer's The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, aka Christopher Smith (Cena), got his own spinoff show on HBO Max. Having aired seven episodes thus far out of the first season's total of eight, the series has been a massive hit, reportedly earning a spot as the most-watched streaming series in the world last month.
Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker and directs most of them as well, delivering a raunchy, violent, and hilarious take on the superhero genre. In the show, Peacemaker joins a top-secret task force known as Project Butterfly in an effort to hunt down and destroy a parasitic alien species. In addition to killing scores of people, Peacemaker is also a very sexual being, either engaging in or pursuing romantic relations with many of the other characters. In addition to Cena, Peacemaker stars Jennifer Holland, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Chukwudi Iwuji, Steve Agee, and Robert Patrick.
In a new interview with Empire magazine (via Slash Film), Gunn discusses Peacemaker's sexuality and confirms that the character isn't straight. While explaining the unique chemistry between Brooks' character, Leota Adebayo, and Smith, Gunn reveals that Cena was actually the one who delved more into the character's sexuality, often in the form of improvisation. Check out Gunn's full comment below:
"She is his polar opposite in so many ways, politically. She's a Black, gay woman. He's a white, straight — nah, he's not straight [laughs] — white, whatever-he-is male. And yet they really like each other. They have a lot in common. [...] Peacemaker is an interesting character because he's so f*****-up in so many ways, and then in other ways, he is kind of weirdly forward-thinking. John does improv all the time, and he just turned Christopher Smith into this hyper-sexualized dude that is open to anything sexually. I was surprised by that. But I thought, 'I guess it makes sense that this guy isn't one-dimensional.'"
One of the clearest indications in the series that suggests Peacemaker isn't straight is shown in episode 2, when he is seen in bed with both a man and a woman. While exploring Peacemaker's sexuality isn't crucial to the plot of the show, it does help to make him a more interesting and well-rounded character. Later, in that same interview with Empire, Cena explains that he saw Peacemaker's time in prison as a "period of experimentation," for the character, which ultimately opened him up to new types of experiences.
As an ensemble movie, The Suicide Squad provided limited time to actually delve deeper into Smith but now, with the series, Peacemaker has become someone even more complex and three-dimensional. Cena was clearly born to play the role of Peacemaker and imagining anyone else in the role seems like very much an impossible task. With Gunn's confirmation that it was Cena's improvisation that fleshed out new aspects of Smith's personality, it's clear that Cena is having as much fun fleshing out the character as audiences are experiencing it on screen. With there being a good chance of a second season considering the show's popularity, it's looking like fans will be getting even more time with Cena's Peacemaker after the show's first season comes to a close this Thursday.
Source: Empire Magazine (via Slash Film)
