With sex on screen is becoming more taboo, a film like “Queer” is refreshing. Speaking to Dazed, star Drew Starkey shared his opinion of incorporating sex into narratives and how it can reveal more than just words.
“I think it’s the ultimate form of honesty shown on screen,” said Starkey. “That’s the ultimate form of communication, how they’re intimate with one another. It’s as present as you can be with another person.”
In discussing his character, Navy serviceman Eugene Allerton and his affair with Daniel Craig’s William S. Burroughs stand-in, William Lee, Starkey explained how both characters want the same things, they’re just coming at it from different directions.
“There’s this deep kind of longing underneath the surface with both of these characters, except one presents it more,” Starkey said. “There’s some type of misfiring within Lee that won’t allow him to express that.”
Trying to understand what’s going on beneath the surface is one of the central themes of “Queer” and one to which Starkey particularly connected.
“That fear of someone truly getting to know who you are is one that I struggled with for, I mean, the majority of my life,” he said. “That can stop people in their tracks.”
Despite this apprehension, when it came to portraying intimacy with Craig, Starkey found a lot of comfort in his co-star’s approach to the work. “His ability to be like, ‘Oh, great, moving on.’ Like, oh, yeah, right, same – I’m not thinking about what I just did on repeat.”
At the NYFF premiere of the film back in October, Starkey also spoke to IndieWire about preparing for these sex scenes and how by the time they actually shot, there was no discomfort at all.
“Daniel and I worked with an intimacy coordinator, but we were in movement rehearsals for like months before those shoots,” Starkey told IndieWire. “So, you know, by the time we got there, it’s like we’d been [in] like a jiu-jitsu class for like a couple of months. It was with this amazing, beautiful dance, and choreography. We were comfortable. It was, it was a lot of fun.”
“Queer” is now playing in theaters from A24.
