Was it true or…? Drew Starkey talks about his big ‘Queer’ moment

Was it true or…? Drew Starkey talks about his big ‘Queer’ moment

READING TIME: 4 MIN.

Earlier this year, Luca Guadagnino had social media abuzz about a motel room scene in “Challengers,” his drama about the rivalry between two tennis players — played by Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist — on and off the court. In Zendaya, playing the object of both their intentions, he initiates a three-way kiss; then at some point she withdraws, but the men do not. Later, the two men literally have a steamy moment in a sauna; but despite all the hetero-and-homoerotic tension, there are no sex scenes in the film.

Not so with “Queer,” Guadagnino’s latest with Daniel Craig as William Burroughs’ doppelgänger (it’s an adaptation of Burroughs’ unfinished novel), in which the “Knives Out” actor plays a drifting and often drunk novelist killing time in Mexico City . sometime in the 1950s. His aimlessness ends when he becomes obsessed with another American, a younger man played by Drew Starkey, the 3 30-year-old best known for his ongoing role in Netflix’s teenage mystery series. “Outer Banks,” which was recently renewed for a fifth and final season.

“To be clear, the film’s gender is definitive and abundant,” writes Time Magazine in a feature in the film. “Those who were frustrated by the camera’s pronounced panning away in Guadagnino’s previous May-December gay romance, Call Me by Your Name, should be fed up with Queer’s honesty.” In the film, Lee (Craig) has sex with two men: a more than willing hottie (named Chumi Bar Guy) played by queer music icon Omar Apollo; and a much smaller Starkey, who plays Eugene Allerton.

Now that the movie is in theaters amid major Oscar buzz (especially for Craig), there’s a lot of internet buzz about the sex scenes in the movie, one with Apollo in a seedy bar and the other between Craig and Starkey in Lee’s apartment . The Daily Beast calling it “one of the most amazing sex scenes of the entire year” in a year full of amazing sex scenes. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination, and especially in Starkey’s case, which has left many wondering if it’s real or a prosthetic?

The question is answered in the Time story: “Starkey Says He Wore a Denture.”