Franz Rogowski on making Passages, the steamiest film of the year

Apr 08, 2024

By Jack King

Franz Rogowski has been a staple of the European film circuit for the past half-decade. Vulnerable, magnetic, known for his inviting gaze and acrobat's physicality, the German actor also has a unique handsomeness about him that led the New York Times to call him an “unlikely sex symbol”.

His new film, Passages, casts him as an unlikable, capricious, magnetically hot film director, Tomas. He cheats on his husband, Martin, portrayed by Ben Whishaw, with a woman, Blue is the Warmest Colour's Adèle Exarchopoulos, after meeting her in a bar. Tomas' blunt manner in telling Martin about the dalliance when he comes home the morning after — “I had sex with a woman last night. Can I tell you about it?” — tells you everything you need to know about his corrosive egocentricity, and subsequent scenes give you the sense that this is not his first dance with fuckboyism.

“It's great to play someone who isn't easy to read,” Rogowski tells GQ, scooched up close on a pillowy sofa in a London hotel room. His bright red trousers bear the attractive heat of a campfire, or a neon light stick in a nightclub. He's quietly intense. Those eyes, famously alluring, want to be looked at. “I think Tomas is very much alive, and he causes a lot of drama, and trouble, and that's good for the movie,” he continues. “But on the page it was hard to like him.”

For the film's explicit, though artfully composed, sex scenes, America's movie censorship board slapped Passages with a rare (and, as critics have argued, unwarranted) NC-17 rating — which director Ira Sachs called “a form of cultural censorship.”

But Rogowski's stock continues to rise: after Passages, he'll star in a stoner comedy with Pete Davidson, and he's set to play opposite Barry Keoghan in British indie darling Andrea Arnold's next film, Bird. Here, he speaks to GQ about his newfound international fame, his strong connection to Ben Whishaw, and those sex scenes.

GQ: You're starting to get a lot more international attention — in America and the UK — than you did, say, a couple of years ago. How does that feel?

Franz Rogowski: I do enjoy attention. You know, most people fight hard to get some. And when you get too much, it might be overwhelming, but I am thankful, nevertheless. Sometimes, I make mistakes, and everything is a bit amplified. But if there's attention, it means people like the movies, and it's great to be a part of something that matters to people.

You've talked about how you met Ben Whishaw — [director] Ira Sachs dumped you at a table together at a café in Paris and left you to it. What was your immediate impression?

He was gorgeous. He was very well dressed. He was sat in the corner, like a lonely poet, wearing beautiful earrings and quite big glasses. Our conversation started with us sharing admiration and curiosity for the project, but also being a bit shy, as we knew that we'd be intimate in the film. You can prepare as much as you want, but you never know how it's going to be in front of the camera. So we had to just start a conversation about us. And then, the next thing I remember is that we were trying costumes in front of each other, in underwear, trying very playful and experimental pieces.

Were you shy with one another when you were trying the costumes?

No. I think we felt a strong connection from the start. I love Ben, I think he's wonderful as an artist, but also as a person, as an actor. I wanted to be with him. I think, yeah, he felt the same way. So it was one of those projects where you really want to be there. That's not always the case.

What did you both appreciate, or observe, in the script?

I think we both wondered how it's possible to justify Tomas' actions, something so self-centred, and also something so cruel, in a way. But the more we brought life to those scenes, we both realised they're all looking for the same thing. It's just they have different strategies, different life, and different stories.

In my case, I think Tomas is too busy with himself, trying to love himself, trying to be independent. But actually, he's very dependent on others' opinions, others' feedback, and others' reactions towards him.

The more [Ben and I] experienced what their relationship looked like, the more we connected. Because it wasn't about cruelty; it was merely about a long-term relationship falling apart, for many reasons. And we both found a lot of our own encounters and stories that somehow brought life to the film. We've all met a Tomas.

How did you approach choreographing the intimate scenes? You didn't use an intimacy coordinator, did you?

We had no intimacy coach; we created the intimacy ourselves. We didn't really know how it would work, so we were all nervous. We met, we walked it through. We knew that we would just have to jump right into it, and have sex. And I mean, 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 others' ass. I think it helped that we just trusted each other.

I think a lot of it had to do with the duration, these very long takes. Sometimes you shoot for like twenty seconds; we shot these scenes for five minutes, ten minutes. So it really felt like sex.

Passages comes to UK cinemas on 1 September.