Ryan Phillippe glad his kiss with Breckin Meyer will be seen in the director’s cut of “54”

A few days ago, the film 54 aired on TV and I caught much of it as I’ve had a renewed interest now that the original cut by writer-director Mark Christopher has been completed and made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this month.

The restored film has gay-themed material that had been taken out of the film including a kiss between leads Ryan Phillippe and Breckin Meyer. And most of the studio-ordered footage has been taken back out including scenes that expanded a subplot involving Neve Campbell’s character into full-blown romance between her and Phillippe’s bisexual character.

‘I’ve never seen this kind of editing and re-shooting on another film I’ve done,’ Phillippe tells Vulture. ‘The characters were fundamentally changed in a way that wasn’t true to the original script. Not even close.’

Of the 1998’s film’s second life Phillippe says: ‘This kind of resurrection does not happen – especially for a film that didn’t perform particularly well and was picked apart by the critics. What was hard for us was that initially we thought we were making something along the lines of Boogie Nights, you know? Something that was wild and represented the time period.’

So what about that kiss between he and real-life buddy Meyers?

‘There was a part of us that was a little sad nobody ever got to see it,’ says Phillippe. ‘We did something that was relatively bold for two young male actors, and we took pride in the places that the original story went. So, it’s nice that people finally get to see Breckin and me kiss.’

I’ll say!