Drew Starkey’s journey into the world of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer didn’t start with a typical audition. Instead, the project seemed to find him at just the right moment. The 30-year-old actor, best known for his role in Outer Banks, was in the middle of sending self-tapes for various projects when his name was brought to Guadagnino’s attention. A producer friend showed one of Starkey’s tapes to the Challengers and Call Me by Your Name director. Soon after that, Starkey reportedly received an unexpected call and Guadagnino wanted to meet him for breakfast.
“I was like, ‘OK, that’s insane,’” Starkey recalled during an interview with Variety. He described how, over the next few months, he and Guadagnino shared numerous meals. During these meetings, the director detailed his vision for Queer, his adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel. Eventually, Starkey auditioned for the role of Eugene Allerton, a drug-addicted former Navy serviceman in 1940s Mexico City, with whom Daniel Craig’s character, William Lee, becomes infatuated and he landed the part.
Reflecting on the experience, Starkey said, “It felt really organic. That’s usually not the way it works. But I think it’s such a testament—Luca really wants to get to know his actors as well as possible, not just from a performance standpoint, but from a human standpoint. And I didn’t care if anything came of it—I was like, ‘Great, I get to sit down and have conversations with a director and an artist that I look up to and admire. What a beautiful thing.’”
Starkey further opened up about the challenges of his role in Queer and what it was like to work with Daniel Craig. The role of Eugene Allerton proved to be Starkey’s most challenging yet. Director Guadagnino encouraged him to embrace the character’s ambiguity, asking him, “Can you play hard to read?”
Starkey, who describes himself as a pretty hard-to-read person, said that he took on the challenge with determination. Talking about the character he said, “he’s an ambiguous figure and kind of restricted in his own self, but there’s a sense of longing there. And I wanted to protect him in a way and kind of guide him through this.”
One of the most talked-about aspects of Queer is the steamy scenes between Starkey and Daniel Craig. Meeting the iconic actor for the first time was understandably intimidating for Starkey. “I think everyone’s starstruck when Daniel walks into the room,” he admitted. However, Craig’s down-to-earth demeanor quickly put him at ease. “He’s an incredibly kind, goofy, beautiful person and a very giving actor and a good friend. He’s all of it,” the actor added.
The two actors worked closely to develop their characters’ dynamic, with Luca Guadagnino emphasising the need for love and connection between them. Starkey and Craig jumped into movement rehearsals and choreography to build their on-screen chemistry. “We just jumped in like, ‘Alright, we’re game,’” Starkey said.
As for the film, it is going to premiere in the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 3. According to IMDb, Queer is the story of “Lee, who recounts his life in Mexico City among American expatriate college students and bar owners surviving on part-time jobs and GI Bill benefits. He is driven to pursue a young man named Allerton, who is based on Adelbert Lewis Marker.”
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