September 14, 2020
'Call Me By Your Name' Director on Straight Actors and Gay Roles, Full Frontal Nudity
Kevin Schattenkirk READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Luca Guadagnino, the out gay Italian director of the hit 2017 film "Call Me By Your Name," recently told The Independent that he cannot commit to strictly casting gay actors to play gay roles.
Guadagnino's explanation as to why appears to be informed by the film's complex and multi-dimensional characters of Elio (Timothe� Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), neither of whom were presented as exclusively gay:
"That sounds to be dull and a little preposterous. If I have to cast what people think is the real thing for a role, I wouldn't be able to cast. I cannot cast a gay man to play Oliver. I have to cast Oliver to play Oliver because the identities of gay men are as multiple as the flowers in the realm of earth. So, there is not a gay identity. One person who is gay is completely different to another person who is gay.
"So, if I have to be accurate to this kind of dull remark, I could cast Oliver but Oliver doesn't exist. He's a creature of [writer] Andr� Aciman. We go back to the last point I want to make which is that the beauty of acting is the possibility of the creation and embodiment of new selves through the art of acting."
Guadagnino also discusses the potential for "Call Me By Your Name" sequels in the form of chapters or chronicles of the main characters and how they move through their lives. Of Elio, Guadanino states, "...maybe the next chapter will be, what is the position of the young man in the world, what does he want – and what left a few years later of such an emotional punch that made him who he is?"
Elsewhere in The Independent interview, Guadagnino also addresses criticism from fellow filmmaker James Ivory – who was a producer and a draft screenwriter of "Call Me By Your Name" – for not including full frontal male nudity in the film. Professing he has no issue with including nudity in films, Guadagnino said, "my question to [Ivory] is does this movie need full frontal male nudity. I don't think so. It doesn't."
Read the interview with Guadagnino at The Independent.
