You are in love with Red, White & Royal Blue. You’d be crazy not to. The Prime Video adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s 2019 novel is tearing up the charts with its refreshingly contemporary takes on subjects like gay romance, the American Executive branch, and the complicated ins and outs of dating a member of the British Royal Family.
And even though the film has been met with a warm welcome, fans of the book have a burning question: Where is June Claremont-Diaz in Red, White & Royal Blue? In the novel, June is so many things to Alex: his sister, his friend, and his sounding board. She even goes on fake dates with Henry when the press turns into bloodhounds and stalks the new lovers.
But, in the movie, she’s only one thing: Notably absent.
There’s not a ton of tea to spill here. Any time you try to take a 421-page book and fit it into a two-hour movie, there are going to be some casualties. In the case of June Claremont-Diaz, she got the narrative BrundleFly treatment, with all of her comradery and reliability rolled into the character of Nora, played in the film by Rachel Hilson. Now, she is present in the book as well and is Alex’s friend, but is more of a friend he formerly dated.
With two heaping scoops of June’s character poured into her arc, Nora becomes a character chimera in the film, offering familial support to Alex and campaign know-how to his mother’s re-election proceedings. Monster mashing two characters into one was a more than tenable idea for Red, White & Royal Blue, the directorial debut of Olivier, Tony, and GLAAD Award-winning writer Matthew Lopez. With plenty of source material to work with and a whole lot of emotional ground to cover, the freshman director already had over an hour of the story to cut out of the film before it was ready for release.
But if you are dead set on finding an in-universe reason for June’s absence, we can just make one up. She got kidnapped by those guys that took Elizabeth Moss at the end of season four of The West Wing. There, now everyone’s happy.