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 paramour Drew Starkey.
When asked about the reactions to the on-screen sex at the Los Angeles premiere of “Queer” Wednesday night, Craig stated in a very matter-of-fact tone, “It’s pretty prudish to me.”
“Queer,” based on the 1985 novella by famed American beatnik William S. Burroughs, follows William Lee (Craig), a disillusioned American veteran who spends his days drinking and dopping in 1950s Mexico after fleeing a drug charge in his home country. His life suddenly finds purpose after meeting Eugene Allerton (Starkey), a younger American expat who shows Lee the flashes of love he’s desired for so long.
Grammy-nominated pop star Omar Apollo makes his Hollywood debut in “Queer” as a sleazy bar patron who quells Lee’s loneliness after being shooed away by Eugene. He revealed he landed the role because of a 2022 interview with Variety‘s Marc 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 [Marc] asking me if I wanted to get into film and I said yes. So they reached out.” Apollo said. “Luca, I’ve been a huge fan of him. So as soon as they asked, I was like, ‘Of course.’ I didn’t even know what the script was. I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever you want, I got you.’”
Justin Kuritzkes, who penned the script for “Queer” as well as Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” had a very different approach to queerness for the 1950s love story compared to the sizzling tennis drama. Kuritzkes noted “the word ‘queer’ had such a different meaning” when the book was written compared to now. He said while developing the story, it was imperative to authentically capture “the very particular” history of the Beat Generation and the realities of queer love that lived within it.
“I think this movie is engaging with a vision of queerness that existed in a very specific time and place,” said Kuritzkes. “It was my job, as I was writing, to not impose my modern sensibilities on it [and] meet the book and the characters where they were.”
“Queer” is in theaters Nov. 27.
