The Advocate’s own Brandon Voss sat down with Matthew Goode, who reveals all the spray tans, free suits, furry chests, and flaccid penises from behind the scenes of Tom Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man. A few sample quotes:
Compared to shooting love scenes with a woman, do you find it more challenging to get intimate with another straight man?
Well, I’ll let you know when I have to do something with full-frontal. But I don’t think you can have an erection in a scene, and I always find that funny: If you’re going to have sex, you can’t suddenly have the man springing into bed with a floppy knob. It should be a little bit saturated with semen and standing out at an odd angle with a few veins involved. [Laughs] Obviously I’m a man who likes women and has a child now, but I’m not squeamish and I love all people. If you’ve been entrusted to do the job, then you find something to love in the other character and you do your job.
Are you forgetting the black-and-white nude photograph of Jim that George retrieves from his safety deposit box?
Oh, shit, that’s true! That was taken on the first day of filming. We had a female photographer on set, so I was like, “Oh, bloody hell.” We went off into the desert and Tom came too, because he has to micromanage every part of the film — at least that’s what I told myself. He was like, “Matthew, could you possibly give us a bit more pubic hair?” I was like, “What?! Oh, come on!” But it was nice that they caught me in a moment when I was finding it all quite funny, so it’s a slightly goofy photograph, which seems more naturalistic than some brooding shot where I’ve done a million press-ups before and look inflated.
Colin told me that you were a good kisser. What did you think of his skills?
Right back at ’im. Sometimes you see straight actors trying to portray gay men as very aggressive, so the kissing is super-aggressive and rough. I’m sure that does exist, but we liked that our kissing was sensitive.
Find the entire illuminating interview at Advocate.com.