Venom star Tom Hardy has opened up about the prevailing belief that the symbiote is an LGBT+ icon, saying he hoped to give “people some joy” with the new movie.
Director Andy Serkis and actor Hardy sat down with MTV UK to discuss Venom: Let There Be Carnage and their Marvel inspirations. In a stroke of genius, writer and critic Hanna Flint questioned the duo about the “popular view that Venom is a LGBTQ icon” and if that was done on purpose.
The original Venom film struck a chord with LGBT+ audiences, with many people in the community embracing the antihero as a queer icon. When Venom is fully united, the alien doesn’t identify inside the traditional gender binary, opting for using “we” as a preferred pronoun. Venom can also reproduce asexually and, at one point in the comics, has a child with Eddie.