'Passages' Star Franz Rogowski Talks Crafting 'Real Intimacy' with Ben Whishaw

Passages is one of the sexiest gay movies in years, and a lot of that comes from the white-hot energy between its stars Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski.

The movie follows Tomas (Rogowski) and Martin (Whishaw), a married couple whose already turbulent relationship is further complicated when Tomas hooks up with Agathe, a female teacher played by Adèle Exarchopoulos.

The film was slapped with an NC-17 rating, and while it is definitely sexy, many have argued that the rating is a form of “cultural censorship” that prevents gay teens from seeing films that could resonate with them.

One of the sexiest scenes in the film comes when Martin and Tomas have sex while Agathe listens next door. Rogowski opened up to GQ about filming the scene and how he and Whishaw navigated the intimacy needed for such a scene.

“We created the intimacy ourselves,” Rogowski revealed, meaning that they did not use an intimacy coordinator. “We knew that we would just have to jump right into it and have sex. It wasn’t real sex, but we created real intimacy: we were sweating, we were touching each other, rubbing our bodies together, you know, grabbing each other’s arse.”

“I think we felt a strong connection from the start,” he said. “I love Ben, he’s wonderful as an artist, but also as a person, as an actor. I wanted to be with him. I think he felt the same way.”

Rogowski also revealed that, unlike many scenes that actors film, the takes for the sex scene were “very long.”

“Sometimes you shoot for like 20 seconds, we shot these scenes for five minutes, ten minutes,” he revealed. “So it really felt like sex. I think it helped that we just trusted each other.”

Passages was released in the US earlier this month and will come to the UK on Friday, September 1.