In a new conversation with Interview, Omar Apollo said he lost weight to look good for the ‘Queer’ sex scene with Daniel Craig.
“I had to get on the soup diet,” the actor stated. “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 200 pounds because I’m 6’5.”
Apollo lost 20 pounds to fit his character’s description of having a flat stomach for a movie. He added, “I don’t know if I could say this, but we were drinking gin and tonics before our scene. It was a vibe.”
Omar went on to talk about his experience of working with Craig, “I had a really cool experience with him. He definitely has this presence to him that is felt from far away.”
“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,” added the actor. “You have to be vulnerable. You have to be open to these emotions. It was such an honest answer.”
Apollo and Craig will appear in Luca Guadagnino’s new film ‘Queer.’ Craig, Apollo, Drew Starkey, and Guadagnino were at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday for the film’s premiere. It got an 11-minute, 44-second ovation. A24 has the U.S. rights to the movie.
Before the screening, Craig talked about his sex scenes with Starkey at a press conference, saying, “You know as well as I do, there’s nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set.”
He then noted, “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… Drew’s a wonderful, fantastic, beautiful actor to work with, and we just, we kind of had a laugh. We tried to make it fun.”
The film ‘Queer,’ based on William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel, follows Lee (Craig) as he escapes a drug bust in New Orleans and heads to 1940s Mexico City. There, he becomes obsessed with Allerton (Starkey), an ex-Navy serviceman and drug user. The movie also features Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Henry Zaga, Drew Droege, and Ariel Schulman.
