Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, and Omar Apollo star in Queer, which is based on the novel by William S. Burroughs. The movie is now playing in NY and LA theaters and will be released nationwide on December 13.
1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton, an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.
“Luca does such a good job of describing that [vision] to you and painting that picture before you even step into the world,” Starkey expressed. “There’s a lot of things you do where the way it’s described or the experience of making it doesn’t quite fit the end result and this was merged into one. Luca presented the world in a certain way and we just had to step into that world and yeah, it was laid out for us very nicely.”
“The research I did involved watching lots of footage of Burroughs,” Craig told me. “What was interesting to me is that he spoke in a very deep voice, was very serious and I thought, what’s he hiding? That always makes me think, what’s going on behind? And then, there’s other little tiny bits of footage you can find of him much more relaxed at home, probably shooting guns, high with friends and that was the person I was keen to kind of key into, the lesser known part of him and that hopefully is where the performance really kind of is coming from.”
“[Luca] invited me over when he was mixing Challengers, so I got to see him in a room full of people and kind of leading, really expressing his thoughts, being very direct, and seeing how easily he kind of navigates those spaces,” Apollo explained. “I have a leadership role when it comes to music, so I learned a lot about just the rhythm and the speed of your decisions and your intuition, and trusting it and things like that.”
I spoke with the actors about working with Luca Guadagnino, exploring the story through the eyes of Lee, how the film ends, and more.
Watch my interviews below:
