Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey prepared for sex scenes in Luca Guadagnino’s Venice title ‘Queer’ by “dancing” and “rolling around on the floor” together

Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey have described their preparation for the sex scenes in Luca Guadagnino’s Venice Competition title Queer.

“There’s some choreography in the movie which is a very important part of the movie,” said Craig, speaking at the film’s Venice press conference. “Drew and I started rehearsals on that months before we started filming. Dancing with someone is a great ice-breaker.

“There’s nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set,” continued Craig. “There’s a room full of people watching you. We just wanted to make it as touching and real and as natural as we possibly could. Drew’s a wonderful, fantastic, beautiful actor to work with. We kinda had a laugh. We tried to make it fun.”

“We jumped into movement rehearsals pretty early on,” said US actor Starkey. “Not just in the intimate scenes but throughout the course of the movie, that really freed us up, freed what was happening in here [he motioned to his head] and freed our bodies up and we felt open to try new things.

“When you’re rolling around on the floor with someone the second day of knowing each other, that’s a good way to get to know someone.”

Starkey also credited movement coordinators Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot with aiding the physical scenes. “They really opened doors for us,” said the actor. “I’m not a dancer, Daniel’s definitely not a dancer,” he continued, drawing a mock look of hurt from Craig, who added, “We found our limits.”

Craig stars in Queer as William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, who meets a young man with whom he becomes infatuated, and goes on a journey into the forest in search of a mythical drug. 

The film is based upon William S. Burroughs’ short novel of the same name, that Burroughs wrote in the early 1950s and was published in 1985.

“We had months of this experimenting with each other, moving to poetry, forgetting the language of it all,” said Starkey. “Then we got on set and it was about going for it.

“Luca allows that space for it to happen – he invites it and he goes for it. I’ve never [before] had a moment [like that] to dive into one moment in a story.”

Romanticism

“The joy was the starting point for me,” said Guadagnino. “I was 17 when I read the book, a megalomaniac dreaming of building worlds through cinema. The vivid imagination of this writer, the profound connection that he was describing on the page, the complete lack of judgment of the way these characters were behaving, the romanticism of the idea of adventure - this transformed me and changed me forever. Because I want to be loyal to that young boy, I have to bring this to the screen.”

“I want to leave the audience at the end of it with an idea of self – who are we when we are alone,” said Guadagnino of his aims with the film. “Who are you when you are along in that bed, and you are left with the feeling of how you have felt for someone else.”

The film is produced by Guadagnino and Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, Frenesy and Fremantle. A24 holds US rights, with Vision Distribution releasing the film in Italy.

Craig received just one question about his best-known role, when asked if there could ever be a gay James Bond. Before he could answer Guadagnino jumped in, saying, ”Guys, let’s be adults in the room for a second. There is no way around the fact that nobody could ever know James Bond’s desires. Period. The important thing is that he does his missions properly,” drawing laughter from the room.

Queer debuts in Competition in Venice this evening (Tuesday, September 3). It will then head to North America, screening in Toronto on September 9; then at New York Film Festival on October 6.

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