I don’t know if it’s actually methodology. I’ve never wanted to be an actor as a source of income. I never cared about fame. I always wanted to do this, so I moved to New York to do theater because I loved it. When I read a script or I am considering a role, I’m going off of this compulsion that I feel. When I read something and I feel that overwhelming sense to be compelled to do it, I just get excited.

What is it about this role or this story that makes me so excited? What is this magnet and this drawn? I believe that the best way to get into a role, to figure out the thoughts and the understandings of another human being is by silencing the noise around yourself. It’s important to create an environment and a space for yourself to just be quiet, to start to really consider what those thoughts are and think about the role.

There’s so many different specific things about a character that let you know who they are. Something he does so beautifully is he’ll give you a very specific action or note to do, and it might feel so incredibly weird, and you’re like, “That makes no sense. Why would I do that then?” and then you do it and you’re like, “Oh my God, that totally worked, and why wasn’t that my instinct at first?” It made me think more about what a character can do in a space, it made me feel more open to the idea of trying things that might feel odd or different. He also edits in his head, which I think is really cool. He’s already editing the scene. That’s why he does two takes.

It was my job to find where her pain is stored, the trauma of losing your career, the idea of never allowing yourself the time to grieve, being in a marriage where she’s in charge all the time, she’s making all the decisions, being accountable for two people. Her life, since she was a kid, has felt so incomplete, because this one true love, which is tennis, has been ripped away from her.

Guadagnino said in a press release shared with Our Era, “What struck me most was the strangeness of it — it’s the most accessible of his works, but what connected me to it was something I could feel within myself at the time: the idea of craving contact with somebody who reflects you, who you connect with on the deepest conceivable level.”

Craig disclosed he would have worked with Guadagnino on any opportunity, but, to be able to work with him on this specific film, Craig felt incredibly gracious. He wanted to show viewers that Lee’s addiction doesn’t define him. His discomfort with who he is does; causing him to always look for an escape in something, someone or some place.

For characters to fully come to life on-screen, as one sees with Starkey and Allerton and Craig and Lee, the cast needs to feel the story is in good hands. That comfortability and care oozing on set is what allowed Craig and Starkey to let go of who they are and go the distance emotionally and mentally to become their characters’ complicated selves.

While Queer depicts a very specific time and place, its themes - longing, loneliness, and the limits of what we can seek in another person; what they can do for us and what we must do for ourselves - remains universal.

“In my mind, the images and sets for Queer had to be coming through the eyes and mind of Burroughs,” says Guadagnino. “Thirty years after I started thinking about the novel as a movie, I was still committed to the idea of recreating Mexico City, Panama City and Ecuador as if these were artificial places reflecting the anguish and desire and imagery of Burroughs’ source material,” Guadagnino said in a press note shared with Our Era.

For the first two parts of the movie Lee has a certain undoneness to his clothing with his Hemingway silhouette. This contrast to Allerton’s uptight, refined and juvenile collegiate look creates a sort of sexual allure to him that captivates Lee upon laying eyes on Allerton for the first time. Their costumes highlight the two men’s stark incongruities - their age, their stations in life, their psychology.

The liberation created on set is what queer people seek to obtain.

There’s an oppressed feeling from both characters. Most times, it felt like Lee and Allerton were slightly cracking themselves open into who they were; always running to some place or to someone new. While the two men were able to open with one another at times, this film shows their personal struggles with being queer. Open queerness is a freedom that is priceless, but a price Lee and Allerton cannot afford. It’s this lack of freedom that many queer people experienced in the 20th century that creates a turmoil in them that leads them to feel that freedom through other means: seeking what others can offer.

Challengers is filled with details like that, people and places that may not matter to the drama but are integral to dropping us into a world that feels authentic and joyful. Joyful because Guadagnino’s delight in them is contagious; you can feel his affection for every cheap hotel and country club tennis court and all of the unimportant people whose lives are built around them. There are a lot of wonderful, trashy American locations in this movie and every one of them Guadagnino films as if it were a beautiful villa somewhere in Northern Italy.

And you always get the sense that they love what they’re doing, leaning deep into their material and capturing it with a cinematic verve that is often unexpected but never pretentious. Even when I feel totally lost to the plot of Guadagnino’s Suspiria, I can feel his love for the theatricality of Tilda Swinton’s old age makeup or the fountaining blood pumps that end the film.

Challengers is filled with details like that, people and places that may not matter to the drama but are integral to dropping us into a world that feels authentic and joyful. Joyful because Guadagnino’s delight in them is contagious; you can feel his affection for every cheap hotel and country club tennis court and all of the unimportant people whose lives are built around them. There are a lot of wonderful, trashy American locations in this movie and every one of them Guadagnino films as if it were a beautiful villa somewhere in Northern Italy.

These movies could exist without the guys who directed them…but they would be shells of what they are now. Demme and Guadagnino bring their love for character, for actors, for bodies, for genre, for the camera, for music, for landscape, for Applebee’s, and suddenly what could have been just very good becomes truly great.