“Queer” will mark the most prominent film role to date for Starkey, 29, who is known globally for his role on Netflix’s “Outer Banks” as Rafe Cameron, the handsome often violent teen with a killer streak, a cocaine addiction, and an identity crisis.

The interior monologues in “Queer,” which are full of self-deprecating black humor, are considered precursors to the comic-grotesque fantasies in “The Naked Lunch,” the novel considered to be Burroughs’s masterpiece, which was adapted for the big screen by David Cronenberg. He becomes infatuated with a discharged American Navy serviceman named Allerton, a drug user, who, though indifferent to his advances, eventually relents - but only enough to make Lee’s sexual yearnings become even more of an obsession. Eventually they go on a trip to South America in search of a drug known as “Yage” which Lee believes will make him psychic. In Mexico City Lee wanders around the city’s clubs and bars populated by American expatriate college students, discharged soldiers, and other characters on the edge of society. Written between 19 but not published until 1985, “Queer” is Burroughs’s second novel after “Junkie.” Set in decadent Mexico City of the 1940s, it’s the semi-autobiographical story of Lee who has fled from a drug bust in New Orleans. And the film has everything – Mexico, lots of drugs, and Daniel Craig,” Anderson recently told The Guardian.

“It is one of my all time favorite books.

American playwright Justin Kuritzkes, who penned Guadagnino’s upcoming sexy comedy “Challengers” starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Fast – which has now completed post – has adapted the Burroughs novel for the big screen, continuing his collaboration with the Italian director.īritish designer Jonathan Anderson, who has shaken up the fashion world with his creations for Loewe and his subversive signature JW Anderson label, will also continue to collaborate with Guadagnino as costume designer on “Queer” after handling the costumes on “Challengers.”

Junky by William S. Burroughs