Was It Real or ...? Drew Starkey Comes Clean About His Big 'Queer' Moment

Earlier this year, Luca Guadagnino had social media buzzing 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 the court and off. In Zendaya, who plays the object of both of their intentions, initiates a three-way kiss; then, at one point, she pulls back, but the men don't. Later the two men literally have a steamy moment in a sauna; but for all the hetero-and-homoerotic tension, there are no sex scenes in the film.

Not so with "Queer," Guadagnino's latest that stars Daniel Craig as William Burroughs' doppelganger (it is 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, the3 30-year old best-known for his ongoing role on Netflix's teen mystery series "Outer Banks," which was recently renewed for a fifth and final season.

"To be clear, the movie's sex is definitive and copious," writes Time Magazine in a feature on 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 satiated by Queer's frankness." 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 far less so Starkey, who plays the Eugene Allerton.

Now that the film is in theaters amid considerable Oscar buzz (notably for Craig), and there is much internet buzz about the sex scenes in the film, one with Apollo in a seedy bar, and the second between Craig and Starkey in Lee's apartment. The Daily Beast is calling it "one of the most astonishing sex scenes of the entire year" in a year filled with astonishing sex scenes. Suffice to say it leaves little to the imagination, and especially in Starkey's case, which has led many to wonder, is it real or a prosthetic?

The question is answered in the Time story: "Starkey says he wore a prosthetic."

Earlier this fall, Starkey told IndieWire that Craig and he worked with an intimacy coordinator, but he felt they didn't need them. Prior to filming, he explained, Craig and he had been movement rehearsals for months. "So, you know, by the time we got there, it's like we'd been [in] like a jiu-jitsu class for like a couple of months. It was with this amazing, beautiful dance, and choreography. We were comfortable. It was, it was a lot of fun."

Craig concurred, telling Variety. "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," Craig said. "We just wanted to make it as touching and as real and as natural as we possibly could. Drew is a wonderful, fantastic, beautiful actor to work with and we kind of had a laugh. We tried to make it fun."

For his part, "Apollo would not confirm or deny the veracity of his cinematic anatomy," writes Time. Asked about taking the role, Apollo told Out Magazine that he got a call and "[they] told me about the scene and how explicit it was. I instantly just said yes. I was like, Yeah, of course. It's Daniel Craig. Of course I'm down. I wasn't really fearful or anything. I was like, It's kind of my reality. It's not something that's new to me."

Adding: "But it was exciting to do something, especially when it comes to skin and bodily physical contact, It's nice to trust somebody that shoots those kinds of scenes, so intimate and beautifully. So I trusted everyone on set and it was really easy and fun."