Luca, you tried to make The Penny Arcade Peep Show a long time ago with Tilda Swinton, and you wrote your own movie adaptation of Queer as a teenager. Did Justin get to read any of your previous attempts to adapt Burroughs?
Luca Guadagnino: No, I would never do that.
Justin Kuritzkes: He was very shy with that script.
Luca Guadagnino: I have a sense of modesty. And he’s a bitch. I would never sully my work as a writer.
Justin Kuritzkes: I would be so gentle and supportive if you showed me anything! [Laughs]
Luca Guadagnino: Never.
Luca, are there any similarities between your teenage adaptation of Queer and the one that Justin wrote?
Luca Guadagnino: The only thing I remember is that I wrote on the first page, ‘Everything has to be shot on stage.’
Justin Kuritzkes: We talked about that before I started writing it. I always knew we weren’t going to shoot on location, and that Luca was going to build Mexico City.
Luca Guadagnino: That was the real idea I had for the adaptation.
Were you already thinking about Powell and Pressburger as a teenager?
Luca Guadagnino: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those movies.
Did you watch any films together in preparation?
Justin Kuritzkes: Powell and Pressburger meant a lot to me. We didn’t watch those movies together, but we talked about them. A movie we did watch together was The Sheltering Sky. Bertolucci’s movie was a big influence, certainly.
Luca Guadagnino: That’s true. We watched it in Boston.
Luca, did you ask Justin to read any screenplays in particular?
Luca Guadagnino: No, no, no. No! He’s one of the great writers.
Justin, the third act of Queer is so visually driven and full of dream logic. Did it help knowing that Luca would be directing it?
Justin Kuritzkes: This entire script is one that I would not have written for any other director. Luca gave me this book, and said, ‘I’ve wanted to make this movie for a long time. Would you read this tonight, and tell me if you’d write it for me?’ One of the real benefits we had on this movie, as opposed to Challengers, is that weeks before I even started putting pen to paper, we got to hang out and talk about the vision for the movie. And then I was really selfishly writing scenes I was excited for Luca to direct.
Luca, you’ve mentioned in the past that you have a phobia of swimming and snakes. Both heavily appear in Queer. Are either of you exploring your phobias in Queer?
Justin Kuritzkes: I have a very direct answer to that. Sometimes when I see drug use on screen – I’ve fainted before. I’m very squeamish around needles.
I personally have been cultivating my knowledge of Burroughs and passion for him and my attraction for his imagery forever – since I was 16 – which made me meet, in the process, Nirvana. I engraved in my consciousness and unconsciousness a lot of elements that are directly or indirectly related with one another about these two great artists
– Luca Guadagnino
Luca Guadagnino: Which movie?
Justin Kuritzkes: Requiem for a Dream, certainly. Trainspotting. Those movies, for sure. When I see a needle–
Luca Guadagnino: Have you seen Christiane F.?
Justin Kuritzkes: No. Whose movie is that?
Luca Guadagnino: Uli Edel. It was a very shocking movie about that.
Justin Kuritzkes: I was really nervous, honestly, that when I watched this movie, I would get squeamish. I’ve made it through four screenings without feeling squeamish.
Luca Guadagnino: But you felt bad when you saw the injection?
Justin Kuritzkes: No, because I think that scene is so beautiful, and I’m so taken by the direction of Daniel’s performance. It overrides my squeamishness. But when I watched Bones and All at the New York Film Festival, someone fainted right behind me at the end. Luca’s movies can do that to people.
Luca, what about the snakes in Queer?
Luca Guadagnino: No. I dealt with drowning and snakes in a therapeutic way in my former movies: Melissa P., I Am Love, and A Bigger Splash. In this case, the instinct was the opposite. It’s soothing imagery. They swim in the ocean, and have a beautiful, endearing embrace with each other in the water. Or you see this funny snake who chases them, and there’s a nice Disney touch there. Or he meets the ouroboros at the end, and it’s sad.
There are three Nirvana songs in Queer. Is that because their music suits Burroughs, or is it that the line in ‘Come As You Are’ – ‘I swear that I don’t have a gun’ – foreshadows later events in the film, as well as being a nod to Burroughs accidentally shooting his wife, Joan Vollmer, just before he wrote Queer?
Luca Guadagnino: I personally have been cultivating my knowledge of Burroughs and passion for him and my attraction for his imagery forever – since I was 16 – which made me meet, in the process, Nirvana. I engraved in my consciousness and unconsciousness a lot of elements that are directly or indirectly related with one another about these two great artists.
So when it came to this movie, it was more instinctual, the process of having those choices, more than rational. But the unconscious never lies. These crossover references that you’re directing us towards, they’re very accurate. They’re accurate because the intuition behind it has been nurtured by a deep studying of the texts.
Justin, are you writing instinctually as well, or are you trying to guess what Luca would find instinctual?
Inevitably, when you’re writing something, you have to find yourself in it, because otherwise there’s nothing driving you, especially when you’re adapting a book. You have to try as hard as you can to see the book clearly. That also inevitably means you have to let the book see you, and you have to be open to that.
Dazed did a big interview and photoshoot with Drew Starkey.
Luca Guadagnino: It’s out now, right? Beautiful photos.
One of the quotes he gave was that sex is the purest form of communication between two people, because it’s the closest you can get to someone else. Were you trying to convey that with Queer?
Justin Kuritzkes: To a large extent the film is about two people trying to communicate. They talk directly about telepathy. Lee is obsessed with this idea of finding a way to communicate using the language of intuition. The film is a journey of two people trying to get there, and seeing what happens when they do, and seeing how it affects their dynamic, and how they both react to it. Film is a great medium for exploring what talking without speaking looks like.
Challengers and Queer seem very different on paper, but when you watch them, you spot similarities. There’s also a rumour that you’re both doing a superhero film [with Daniel Craig for DC called Sgt. Rock]. Is the goal that you can continue to do films that seem completely different, but then viewers see an overlap afterwards?
Luca Guadagnino: I don’t know if that’s the rationale. Justin and I are very curious people. You can’t repeat yourself like that.
Justin Kuritzkes: I think inevitably you can only write or make a movie or do any art from your point of view or position that you have in the world. You can only do it as yourself. Anywhere you look, you’re going to be looking through your eyes. I spend less time thinking about my eyes than I do about what I want to look at. My eyes will take care of themselves, and so will Luca’s.
Hypothetically, what would be exciting about doing a superhero movie together?
Justin Kuritzkes: I’m excited to make any movie with Luca.
Luca Guadagnino: I want to make sure I can have at least six scripts from Justin so that it’s going to be difficult for any colleague to match that.
Justin Kuritzkes: We’re working towards a retrospective. That’s our dream.
I’m out of time, but I wanted to quickly ask something – maybe it’d just be a simple yes/no answer – but, Luca, you cast Kyle MacLachlan in a short, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have also collaborated with David Lynch. Was Twin Peaks on your mind at all when making Queer?
Luca Guadagnino: Yes.
Twin Peaks was on your mind?
Luca Guadagnino: Yes.
How so?
Luca Guadagnino: You said it could be a simple yes or no. It’s a yes.
So it’ll just be a yes?
Luca Guadagnino: Yes. [Laughs]
Fair enough! Oh, and are we still going to be able to see An Even Bigger Splash?
Luca Guadagnino: Yes, for sure. 100 per cent. We’re finalising it.
Queer is out in UK cinemas on December 13.
