An actor from Daniel Craig’s latest film has revealed how he lost a great deal of weight to get in shape for a steamy scene with the man himself.
The Venice Film Festival kicked off on 28 August and is set to continue until its close on 7 September, and a film starring the James Bond star and directed by Luca Guadagnino has made headlines.
Craig stars in Queer alongside the likes of Jason Schwarzman and Lesley Manville, as well as a number of lesser-known actors that are making a name for themselves.
The film got a standing ovation from audiences (A24)
The movie centres around an American expat named William Lee (Craig), that moves to live in Mexico City during the 1940s.
He then becomes infatuated with a younger student named Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) as he is slowly introduced to the gay scene in the city, exploring the world of drugs and partying.
It’s fair to say that the flick, adapted from a 1985 novel of the same name from William S Burroughs, was received well as it earned a staggering nine-minute standing ovation from viewers at the festival.
One of the actors in the A24 film, Omar Apollo, revealed that he put in a lot of effort to get in shape for his role as he had to perform a sex scene with Craig after their characters form a connection.
Apollo is a singer and actor, best known for his debut album Ivory, which won him the Grammy for Best New Artist at the 2022 awards.
However, the 27-year-old put everything to the side to ensure he had a ‘flat stomach’ in time for filming, and highlighted that he did it all on his own accord.
The musician and actor revealed how he lost 20lbs (9kg) in a short space of time (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
Apollo spoke to Interview Magazine with co-star Starkey, and explained how he lost weight for his part so he didn’t ‘look off’, and it involved a strict diet.
He said: “Yeah, I had to get on the soup diet. Luca did not tell me to lose weight, but when you’re about to have a sex scene with Daniel Craig, you’re like, ‘Oh, dude, I can’t be looking off.’ I was at 200lbs (90kg), because I’m six-five.”
The ‘Evergreen’ musician added: “It’s around where I should be, honestly. But I got down to 181lbs (81kg) when the movie came. I lost 20lbs (9kg) because I read in the script that my character had a flat brown stomach.
“I was like, ‘Damn, I’m actually not flat right now.’ I had to get it together, and I was on tour with SZA. Luckily, I didn’t have that many lines,” he admitted.
Apollo also credited Craig with helping to make the experience ‘beautiful’, sharing: “I remember asking him, ‘How do you feel when the camera’s on?’ And he said, ‘To be honest, every time the camera’s on me, I’m terrified.’ I thought that was beautiful.
“You have to be vulnerable. You have to be open to these emotions. It was such an honest answer,” he said, also adding that the pair had gin and tonics before scenes to ease the pressure of performing.
The film focuses on Daniel Craig’s exploration of the gay scene (A24)
Starkey also shared that he too lost weight for the role, dropping 30 pounds.
He said: “I got a little bit too thin, and Luca was like, ‘Hey, bring it back up a little bit’.”
Craig also shared that filming sex scenes with the ‘wonderful, fantastic, beautiful’ Starkey was ‘touching’.
He explained: “You know as well as I do, there’s nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set. There’s a room full of people watching you.
“We just wanted to make it as touching and as real and as natural as we possibly could.”
As IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio explained, the film features ‘the most explicit gay sex scenes I can remember in any mainstream movie’, so there’s obviously going to be a lot of nudity.
