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How Bryce Dallas Howard prepared for Rocketman's painful "coming out" scene

Photo credit: Rocket Pictures
Photo credit: Rocket Pictures

From Digital Spy

Rocketman features a heartbreaking scene between Taron Egerton's Sir Elton John and his late mother Sheila, during which he comes out as gay during a palpably tense phone call in a London phone box before his performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

At this point, Elton's life is disintegrating due to drug and alcohol abuse, and he's seeking support and reassurance from his mother – despite his self-interested manager and lover John Reid's (played by Richard Madden) insistence not to.

Sheila – played by Bryce Dallas Howard – responds by saying she knows, but he'll end up living a lonely, loveless life as a gay man, which visibly destroys him.

Photo credit: Paramount
Photo credit: Paramount

Related: Exclusive: Rocketman star Taron Egerton feels "incredibly privileged" to play Elton John

Speaking about filming the excruciatingly callous scene, and how she got to know what Sheila was like as a person, Bryce told Cosmopolitan UK: "It was really important to talk to people who were not affiliated with this movie who knew Sheila, and to understand what was going on and what led to this dynamic between them.

"She was very charismatic, wickedly brilliantly hilarious and cutting also, took all of the air out of the room, she sucked it out and it was this thing where she had a personality that could be fun in certain circumstances but then it would turn.

"I think with the coming out scene – other scenes felt a little delicious to play as Sheila, but not this scene. We did it very quickly. We didn't want to live there."

Photo credit: Paramount
Photo credit: Paramount

The Jurassic World star also revealed that she reached out to friends who generously shared their experiences of coming out with her.

"In order to understand that, I talked with a number of my friends who had been through that process themselves, and I wanted to know what specifically about it hurt them," she continued.

"Was it their [family's] tone, was it the pause, was it what they said? And Sheila got it wrong."

The film follows Elton's stratospheric rise to fame, how he conquered his addictions and found unconditional love in music collaborator Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell).

Rocketman is out in cinemas across the UK now.


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