We are so back! After a 12-year-long wait since his most recent feature-length film project, New Queer Cinema icon Gregg Araki has returned to the film world with the highly anticipated I Want Your Sex.
Part comedy, part workplace drama, part thriller, part Law & Order-esque procedural, and all parts horny and hilarious, I Want Your Sex tells the story of a young, naive, inexperienced assistant named Elliot who works for and under the larger-than-life, boisterous, and problematic artist Erika Tracy in her Los Angeles studio. Known for her sexually explicit, provocative, and headline-grabbing works, Erika is a dominating presence in Elliot’s life in more ways than one, especially when the two start developing a sexual relationship outside of work that has Elliot all sorts of hooked.
But Elliot’s newfound passion for submitting to Erika comes at a cost, and Elliot’s life quickly becomes upended after the revelation that Erika was just using him for her latest art exhibition. The resulting drama that ensues ends up becoming a thrilling yet cackle-worthy saga that includes embarrassing threesome attempts, Elliot being kicked out of his gay co-worker’s apartment in favor of a Grindr orgy, and cameos from the likes of some of our favorite celebs of the moment, including Charli XCX, Daveed Diggs, Margaret Cho, and Johnny Knoxville.
I Want Your Sex stars icons like Spirit Award-winning actress and director Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza), Mason Gooding (Scream, Booksmart, Love, Victor), and Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies, I Know What You Did Last Summer), the later three of which joined Araki in sitting down with Gayety to talk more about how they developed the film and how much they loved being a part of something so exciting, sexy, and downright fun.
“I’ve been doing this for so long, it’s kind of easy for me. I don’t even think about it,” Araki told Gayety when asked about what it has been like settling back into the routine or a promotional tour for I Want Your Sex, his first film title since 2014’s White Bird in a Blizzard.
Though it’s been a minute since Araki’s last feature, that’s not to say he hasn’t been putting out some amazing work over the past decade. Shifting to television projects, the industry veteran has directed episodes of some favorite TV and streaming series, including American Crime, 13 Reasons Why, Dahmer, and American Gigolo. He even created his own TV series in 2019, the beloved but short-lived (and queer AF) comedy Now Apocalypse.
With a shift back to his film roots, it’s not lost on the cast how special it is to be working with a name like Araki, who is one of the faces of the New Queer Cinema movement that defined LGBTQ+ representation and storytelling in the ‘90s.
“I had seen Gregg’s movies, and I really wanted to be a part of his world, but I felt like I couldn’t. I didn’t see a place for myself in them,” Hoffman, who plays Elliot, told Gayety about getting to work with Araki and his initial excitement and disbelief about landing the role. “I remember booking it and kind of being, like, ‘Whoa, this is really exciting that this person is willing to take a chance on me.’”
“Cooper Hoffman has a gravitas,” Araki added, commenting on Hoffman and Wilde, who plays Erika, having an undeniable rapport with each other. “He has a lot of presence. And Olivia, obviously, has so much presence. So I was really looking for somebody that could go head-to-head with Olivia. They did an in-person chemistry read, and it was rad. I saw the dynamic instantly.”
But Elliot and Erika aren’t the only characters on screen audiences won’t be able to take their eyes off of. Elliot’s co-worker and eventual roommate and friend Zap (Gooding) is a scene stealer whenever he appears on screen as a snarky, gay art studio employee who seems like he has a lot of bite to him but who, underneath the abs of steel and the unimpressed facade, really has a heart of gold and is willing to help Elliot during his lowest lows.
“Something that I do love about Zap is that I find that my favorite people in real life are ones that are sardonic and have a wit to them that makes them feel extra bitey,” Gooding says about getting to play a queer character like Zap. “Zap does make himself available for his friend, extends his home, and he’s very honest to a degree that I like to think that he’s offering a level of help to Elliot. Zap embodies the type of person I wish I could be. He has such a solid sense of his identity and how he relates to other people and he’s not really willing to be apologetic or couth about it.”
Like all of Araki’s work, queerness is injected throughout the entirety of I Want Your Sex, with one of the most memorable parts of the film being a failed threesome attempt that, at Erika’s command, has Elliot recruiting his best friend Apple (played by Chase Sui Wonders) to join. As hilariously rewarding as it was to watch, Wonders tells Gayety that she had a good time filming that working with the likes of Araki and Hoffman and Wilde was “a blast.”
“That scene was so exciting and daunting, but then immediately upon meeting Cooper and Olivia, we were laughing instantaneously,” she said.
“It’s also very funny,” Wonders continued. “We were having a blast.”
Watch Gayety’s full interview with Araki, Hoffman, Gooding, and Wonders in the video above. I Want Your Sex is now playing in theaters.