In a new conversation for VARIETY’s Actors on Actors issue, future “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” costars Daniel Craig and Josh O’Connor discuss “Queer” and “Challengers”—both of which are directed by Luca Guadagnino. The two talk about O’Connor filming the sex scenes for “Challengers,” getting in shape for films, and filming “Wake Up Dead Man” together.
Craig and O’Connor on the sex scene in “Challengers”:
Craig: “The scene in the hotel room, where they don’t have sex with each other, is the biggest cock tease in movie history.”
O’Connor: “The reality is that those intimacy scenes are the least sexy scenes you can do. I feel far more vulnerable doing an emotional scene.”
Craig: “The sex is the least interesting thing in the scene. You have to play the truth of it the best you can. 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.”
O’Connor: “The reason they’re there is to serve the story.”
Craig: “Did you laugh?”
O’Connor: “Me and Mike [Faist] got the giggles because we’re both kissing Zendaya, and gradually we end up kissing each other. She’s just backed out and she’s watching. 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.”
Craig on “Queer”:
Craig: “You’ve worked with Luca: There’s an atmosphere he creates on a set, which is one of brilliant chaos, but also absolute focus. It’s Italian. It’s Sicilian. Which, for a tight-arsed Englishman, is very liberating. It doesn’t mean that he’s not absolutely laser-focused on everything. And the character just felt so multifaceted, multilayered. He’s got a gun on his hip and walks around a macho guy, but he’s Burroughs. I threw the kitchen sink at it.”
O’Connor: “He feels deeply insecure, and yet the way he walks around is completely confident.”
Craig: “But that makes so much sense to me. That’s the artifice of masculinity.”
Craig on getting in shape for movies:
“When I first started doing the Bonds…Listen, I used to go to the gym a lot. But in my 30s, I abused my body more than I probably should have done. All of a sudden, I get this part [in ‘Casino Royale’], and I’m like, oh, I’ve really got to get fit for this. I did the whole thing. But at the end of the movie, I’d been doing it for so long that I stopped. And then another Bond movie comes up, and you go, oh, I’ve got to get fit again. That cycle, I had to break. I just started keeping fit regularly, so I didn’t stop for long periods of time. It’s really fucking boring talking about working out.”
O’Connor on filming “Wake Up Dead Man” with Craig:
“I’ve never experienced anything like it on a film set. We were all in each other’s pockets for three months. Particularly you and me. Most of the time you and me…The trailers! That’s the best trailer I’ve ever had in my life. It’s better than my flat in London. And I spent a lot of time knocking on your door.”
[Photo Credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Variety – Video Credit: Variety/YouTube
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