“That was painful”: Drew Starkey’s Excruciating Experience Filming Daniel Craig’s ‘Queer’ in Rome is a Literal Nightmare Come True

Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Queer, starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, is one of the most talked-about movies of 2024. Set in the 1950s, the story follows an outcast American expat being infatuated with a younger man in Mexico City. The movie premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival and was highly praised by the critics.

Queer is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel of the same name, and reportedly the director had wanted to adapt the novel since he first read it, i.e., at the age of 17. Guadagnino mentioned that Queer is one of his personal projects, and he hopes that the audience likes it. Drew Starkey, who rose to fame with Outer Banks to now being the Internet’s boyfriend, shared his experience of working on the movie.

Outer Banks actor Drew Starkey talks about preparing for Queer

Drew Starkey is popularly known for playing troubled, cocaine-addicted Rafe Cameron on Netflix’s Outer Banks. In a recent interview with Esquire, the actor recalled his first meeting with Luca Guadagnino, where they had breakfast and the director explained to the actor about Queer. Starkey shared,

Halfway through the first meeting, I was like, ‘This is amazing, and I don’t really care what comes out of it. I’m getting to sit down and have deep conversations with a director—an artist that I really look up to. That’s incredible.

However, Starkey noted that the whole time he kept thinking that it was not going to happen, but it happened. The actor read the novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs based on the movie and memorized the author’s prose effortlessly.

The actor was asked about his role preparation in a video interview with the publication for which he had to lose 30 pounds. Starkey was asked about his favorite pasta from Rome where they filmed, to which he said,

I had no pasta in Rome because I was dieting, and that was painful. I was like walking through the streets of Rome smelling like pizza and pasta I didn’t have.

On speaking about his experience of working with Daniel Craig in the movie, Starkey added that he is such a collaborator and Luca Guadagnino. He added Craig works really hard on what he’s prepared and what he’s done with noting that he is willing just to give it to someone else. Starkey mentioned that Craig is incredible, and he has learned to be measurable from him.

During the interview, Starkey was also asked about his biggest takeaway after being directed by Luca Guadagnino, to which he said that the filmmaker recognizes that it is the ultimate collaborative art for him. The 31-year-old actor mentioned that, according to him, that is what makes a great director: the ability to assemble the perfect team around you.

Drew Starkey talks about the ‘provocative’ intimate scenes in Queer

In a separate interview with EW, Starkey went on to address the s*x scenes filmed in the movie by stating that people love asking about it. He added that the scenes are certainly not provocative for the sake of being provocative in any way. The actor mentioned that Luca Guadagnino wanted everything to be imbued with meaning and lead with love.

It’s just two people who are in this type of strange, loving relationship, and they are working through that. It’s just a representation of reality. It’s two people; this is the way it works.

Starkey continued in the conversation that all three of them had had extensive conversations about the intimate sequences, noting how they wanted it to feel, the music of it, and the dance. He mentioned that by the time they started filming it, they felt like they had already planned a major chunk of it. And then they just started filming.

Luca Guadagnino shared with the publication that he hoped he came with a compassionate understanding that the core of the book is about the fragility of the author’s emotional life. It has been known that because of the ‘provocative descriptor’, the movie that was scheduled as the opening act for MUBI Fest Istanbul 2024 was scrapped and the event was called off altogether.

The filmmaker said that he wonders if the government of Turkey or whoever decided to call it off had actually seen the movie or if they were making a decision based on what they’d read about it.

He also added that either way, they’re helping the movie to become more cult than less. They’re shooting on their feet, these people. Further, Guadagnino noted that nobody would argue that they have a lot of people jumping roofs and motorbikes at high speed if they are doing an action movie.

The filmmaker concluded by stating that when the movie has an emotional touch about contact, society should reclaim the necessity of representing that the way they have to in every way.

Queer gets a limited screening and will be released on November 27, 2024.