Strange was described as the most provocative drama of the year. The Turkish government in Istanbul even banned it from screening at a film festival with the same description: “…provocative content that would endanger public peace.” However, the stars and the director do not agree that the material on display based on the famously unfinished novella by William S. Burroughs, is as provocative as you might read in the press.

“I feel like the physical act is the least interesting thing,” says Daniel Craig, who plays William Lee, a projection of Burroughs himself Weekly entertainment via Zoom in early November. “We are all adults. That’s what people do. But the one thing that’s interesting and what I think works about the scenes is the emotional journey of each character. That’s what we wanted to convey. I think that’s why they work.”

Strange focuses on 1950s Mexico City, where Lee, along with like-minded expats, enjoys same-sex relationships alongside healthy affairs involving heroin, alcohol and other substances. He is fixated on Eugene Allerton (Outer Banks‘ Drew Starkey), a younger man seemingly exploring his bisexuality for the first time. The film, directed by: Call me by your nameis Luca Guadagnino and was written by him challenger Author Justin Kuritzkes highlights several intimate personal contacts between the men as Lee takes them to Latin America in search of a drug called yage, more commonly known as ayahuasca.

Starkey casually embodies Eugene’s chic sex appeal, even fully clothed, but the actor makes no claims to it. He remembers a moment later StrangePremiere at the Venice Film Festival, attended by Céline Strong, Kuritzkes’ wife and director of the Oscar-nominated film Past livescame towards him. “She was like, ‘You’ve never looked like that in a movie, have you?'” Starkey recalled in a separate interview with EW. “I thought, ‘No! I don’t know what it is.’” The answer Strong gave him was Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, the cameraman. “Sayombhu lights serve the people, not the scenes,” she told Starkey.

As for the sex scenes themselves, “I think people love asking about things like that,” comments Starkey, “but it’s certainly not provocative to be provocative in any way. Luca wanted everything to be imbued with meaning and led with love.” . And it’s just two people living in this kind of strange, loving relationship. It is just a representation of reality.

Want more movie news? Sign in Weekly entertainmentis the free newsletter with the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews and more.

Most of what they wanted to accomplish with the intimate sequences, including Lee’s desire to be so close to Eugene that they would establish a telepathic connection, was already written into Kuritzke’s script, Starkey notes. “Me and Luca and Daniel talked about it in detail and how it should feel, about the music and the dance,” the actor continues. “When we started filming, it felt like we had already planned it to a certain point. There’s only so much you can plan for. Then you just shoot and see what happens.”

“When we agreed to do the film together, we both agreed that we would be going into a very deep, emotional space with this film,” Guadagnino says of his conversations with Craig. “So whether it’s injecting heroin, drinking, being a narrator, or ultimately putting each other’s body in conflict with the other’s body, it’s always been about getting deeply involved in what this character is going through and had to be. That’s it, I think.” Of course it may sound very simple, because there is a factor that is not present in 90 percent of cases, namely the sensitivity, the intelligence and the playfulness of the artists who want to perform something different than the average (Actor) seems to be exaggerating. When you do it from a behavioral perspective, everything becomes very natural and very deep, even when we are playing.

Guadagnino read Burroughs for the first time Strange around the age of 17, a particularly “cautious” time in his life, the filmmaker emphasizes. He describes the experience as “an act of defiance against myself” as he sought out more complicated literature, even though he found it difficult to understand the material. Years later, with the film adaptation, Guadagnino hoped he would “develop a compassionate understanding that the heart of the book is about the fragility of Burroughs’ emotional life.”

Craig had no such reading experience, but he pored over Kuritzke’s script and the novella and felt that his instincts aligned with what Guadagnino wanted to achieve. “I saw this very complicated, emotional character in the book that I thought would just be a joy to take on and really try to create,” the actor says.

Regarding this “provocative” description, as well as Turkey’s ban on the film, Guadagnino has some thoughts. “No one would deny that in a big action movie there are a lot of people jumping off roofs or motorcycles at high speed,” says the director. “But if you’re going to make a big emotional film about contact, we should reinforce the need to portray that in every way we need to.”

Strange will play in select theaters on November 27th.