Queer star Drew Starkey was now, officially, an “Internet Boyfriend,” all you had to do was take one peek at social media this past weekend to see this rising actor has the girls, gays and theys in a chokehold.First, in one of our favorite awards season traditions, W Magazine unveiled its annual Best Performances issue, featuring glamorous portraits and glowing profiles of some of the brightest stars of the past year.Among those honored were standout LGBTQ+ performers (Wicked‘s Cynthia Erivo, Sing Sing‘s Colman Domingo, & Emilia Pérez‘s Karla Sofía Gascón), honorary gay icons (The Substance‘s Demi Moore, The Last Showgirl‘s Pamela Anderson), and a slew of our favorite babygirls (Babygirl‘s Harris Dickinson, naturally), including Starkey.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.With a tasteful flash of pec & happy trail, Starkey’s W Magazine shots—lensed by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott—quickly caught the internet’s attention.
The photos even had PopCrave so riled up they posted them twice. Calm down, girl—we know!Drew Starkey photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for W Magazine’s Best Performances Issue pic.twitter.com/aZGE25l5bEThe accompanying interview is framed around Starkey’s leap from popular Netflix teen drama Outer Banks to the world of prestige cinema thanks to his acclaimed performance in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, which has welcomed this humble Southern charmer into the upper echelons of Hollywood.“I’ve changed—that’s what everyone says,” the actor jokes about the experience of attending hsi movie’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival this past fall. “My family and friends, they’re like, ‘You’re different now.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, well, once you go to Venice—you don’t understand.’ That was my first time—my first real large-scale festival.
I’d never been to Italy before we shot Queer, either. So that was jarring. But it was incredible. It was overwhelming in the best.