Daniel Craig has shared some thoughts on the threesome scene in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers in a new interview alongside Josh O’Connor.
READ MORE: ‘Queer’ review: Daniel Craig’s sweaty, sexy gay drama is far from James Bond
The two actors took part in Variety’s ‘Actors On Actors’ series to discuss their work on Guadagnino’s movies – Craig stars in his latest film, Queer, which was released nationwide in the UK and US on Friday (December 13), while O’Connor had a main role in Challengers.
O’Connor said: “The cool thing about Luca is, he’s not afraid to take some source material and stretch it out and make it into something through his eyes,” before Craig replied: “Obviously, I love the end of [Challengers]. I love where it goes to: All of that setup, and you get to the moment. Which is what Luca’s about — he wants to hit the moment of love. And you see a love between the two guys that trumps everything around it. I’m just a sucker for it. What else is there?”
O’Connor continued: “I think that’s what was going on in this film: Yes, there’s the tennis backdrop, but the desire these three people had for each other that’s torn apart … and there’s an invisible magnet that’s dragging them back together. That was definitely a Luca component that was bubbling underneath.”
Craig then said: “The scene in the hotel room, where they don’t have sex with each other, is the biggest cock tease in movie history.”
Mike Faist, Zendaya and Josh O’Connor attend the ‘Challengers’ Photocall at Claridges Hotel on April 11, 2024 in London. CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
O’Connor, who plays Patrick Zweig in Challengers, described scenes of intimacy in film as being “the least sexy scenes you can do,” explaining that he feels more vulnerable working on emotional scenes, while Craig described sex as being “the least interesting thing” in a scene.
He added: “The only thing that’s going on is in the heads of these people; if you can’t see that, then the scene is just gratuitous. What are they doing there? What’s affecting them? All of these things. You owe it to a sex scene to have all those things in. Otherwise, it’s an excuse to get people naked.”
Meanwhile, O’Connor – who previously described sex scenes as “the least sexy thing in the world” – admitted that he and co-star Mike Faist, who plays former best friend and love rival Art Donaldson “got the giggles” while filming the scene because they go from kissing Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan to kissing each other: “We had this moment of kissing for a while, and then opening our eyes and seeing that it’s just us — that did make us giggle.”
Recently, Craig revealed that he wouldn’t have taken a role in Queer – in which he plays William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City – during his time as James Bond. He told The Times earlier this month: “I couldn’t have done this while doing Bond. It would look reactionary, like I was showing my range.”
He added that he didn’t want to show Bond fans a different portrayal of masculinity: “It’s just not a conversation I wanted. I had it all the way through Bond anyway. Could there be this Bond? That Bond? So anything that is going to inflame that conversation? No – life’s too short.”
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