Queer’s Drew Starkey was ’embarrassed’ rehearsing sex scenes with Daniel Craig

Drew Starkey has admitted being “embarrassed” helped while filming sex scenes with Daniel Craig in new LGBTQ+ drama, Queer.

Directed by Challengers‘ Luca Guadagnino, the new film stars Craig as William Lee, an outcast American expat in 40s Mexico, who spends his days doing drugs and drinking, and whose life is turned upside down when he becomes infatuated with younger ex-Navy serviceman Eugene Allerton (Starkey).

Queer gets weird – really weird – towards the end of the film, when Lee and Allerton sample hallucinogenic drugs, but by that point, they’ve already established an explicit and fragile sexual relationship.

Speaking exclusively to PinkNews at the London Film Festival red carpet of Queer, Starkey explains how the pair got comfortable – really comfortable – with each other, and why being “embarrassed” was the key to creating chemistry.

“We were just comfortable with each other,” Starkey says. “We were in movement rehearsals with each other so we were comfortable with each other, and we were embarrassed in front of each other constantly.”

He added that Guadagnino, possibly still best-known for directing Timothée Chalamet’s Call Me By Your Name, had a heavy hand in the sex scenes, as one would expect, but that they were a “collaboration” by the trio.

“It was mostly conversations with Luca about how to choreograph [the scenes]. It was a beautiful collaboration between the three of us. It was fun. It was really great,” he said.

Queer received mixed reviews after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, although critics were unanimous in their praise for former Bond star Craig and Love, Simon‘s Starkey. Gay singer-songwriter Omar Apollo also features in the film – another one to get his kit off – alongside Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville.

The film is due to be released in the US on 27 November and Mubi has acquired distribution rights in the UK, Mexico and Germany, but no release date has been announced yet.

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