Since the premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” at the Venice Film Festival in September, there has been an intense response from fans and media alike surrounding the revealing love scenes between star Daniel Craig and his on-screen lover Drew Starkey.
When asked about the reaction to the on-screen sex at the Los Angeles premiere of “Queer” on Wednesday night, Craig said in a very matter-of-fact tone: “It’s very wise to me.”
Queer is a film based on the 1985 novella by the famous American writer William S. Burroughs, follows William Lee (Craig), a disillusioned American war veteran who spends his days drinking and doping in 1950s Mexico after fleeing drug charges in his home country. His life suddenly finds purpose after meeting Eugene Allerton (Starkey), a young American expatriate who shows flashes of the love he has desired for so long.
Grammy-nominated pop star Omar Apollo makes his Hollywood debut in “Queer” as a sleazy bar patron who suppresses Lee’s loneliness after Eugene drives him away. He revealed that he got the role because of a 2022 interview with diverseMark Malkin in which the 27-year-old singer expressed his big screen aspirations. You can watch the clip below.
“Someone on Luca’s side saw the video of (Mark) asking me if I wanted to be in the movie and I said yes. So they reached out.” Apollo said. “Luca, I was a huge fan of his. So as soon as they asked me, I said: ‘Of course.’ I didn’t even know what the script was. I said to myself: ‘Yes, whatever you want, I got it.’”
Justin Kuritzkes, who wrote the screenplay for “Queer” as well as Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” had a very different approach to the weirdness of the 1950s love story than the edgy tennis drama. Kuritzkes noted that “the word ‘eccentric’ had a completely different meaning” when the book was written compared to now. While developing the story, he said, it was essential to capture the “very specific” history of the Beat Generation and the realities of queer love that lived within it.
“I think this film engages with the vision of queerness that existed in a very specific time and place,” Kuritzkes said. “It was my job, as I was writing, not to impose my modern sensibilities on him (and) to meet the writers and characters where they were.”
“Queer” hits theaters on November 27.