Drew Starkey revealed whether he wore a prosthetic while filming sex scenes with Daniel Craig for their movie Queer.
Starkey, 31, and his costar Omar Apollo were asked by TIME Magazine for a feature earlier this month about appearing fully nude on screen. While Apollo, 27, would not confirm nor deny whether he opted to film his full frontal scenes without any prosthetic help, Starkey said he chose not to be fully nude on screen.
When asked a similar question, Craig, 56, explained his reasoning for not doing any full frontal scenes, saying, “They’re young. They’re young and beautiful.”
Starkey credited movement rehearsals for helping break the ice on set of the NSFW scenes.
While some actors such as Cooper Koch on Monsters exposed themselves in full-frontal scenes, others have chosen not to go completely nude — and opted for body prosthetics instead. Eric Dane, who plays Cal Jacobs on Euphoria, previously explained what goes into working on such a vulnerable part of the project. “Those scenes are very […]
“We got to embarrass ourselves in front of one another — and have little accomplishments in the choreography with each other,” he added. “That imbued its way into everything.”
Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, Queer follows Craig’s character, Lee, as he flees from a drug bust in 1950s New Orleans. Lee subsequently wanders around the city’s clubs and becomes infatuated with a discharged American Navy serviceman, Allerton (Starkey).
Despite choosing not to go nude on screen, Craig had nothing but praise for Queer’s sex scenes.
“Sex is wonderful and messy and complicated, and hopefully we’ve managed to stick that on the screen, because that’s what happens in the bedroom,” he told the Sunday Times in October. “We’ve gone for that sort of vulnerability and keeping it as real as it possibly can be.”
The topic of prosthetics, meanwhile, has been brought up more and more recently as actors pull back the curtain on filming risqué scenes. For example, Charles Melton was asked about wearing a prosthetic for a sex scene in May December.
“It was very professional,” Melton, 33, told Variety in December 2023 about filming an intimate onscreen moment between him and costar Natalie Portman. “The whole thing. Natalie, [director] Todd [Haynes] and I met to discuss the scene, walking through it and ensuring everybody was comfortable.”
Not all actors have worn penis prosthetics for full frontal scenes, others have preferred to bare it all. Cooper Koch had viewers talking about his performance as Erik Menéndez when Ryan Murphy’s Monsters premiered in September 2024. But it wasn’t just his one-shot episodes where Koch — as Menéndez — recounted years of abuse at […]
Melton confirmed that he chose to wear a body prosthetic instead of completely exposing himself. “There were a few conversations about the prosthetic, regarding what was realistic and what wasn’t,” he explained.
The process proved to be quite tedious for Melton though. “I had to wear that prosthetic for nine hours that day,” he recalled at the time. “I didn’t have anything to drink that morning or the night before. That was an annoying process but still very respectful.”
Meanwhile, Cooper Koch had viewers talking about his performance as Erik Menéndez — and he didn’t opt for a penis prosthetic for a nude shower scene.
“Just to say, mine was not a prosthetic,” Koch, 28, said on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in October. Host Andy Cohen congratulated Koch for being “very blessed,” to which the actor cheekily quipped, “Well hung.”
