How Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay navigated Femme's challenging morality
Rainbow Crew is an ongoing interview series that celebrates the best LGBTQ+ representation on screen. Each instalment showcases talent working on both sides of the camera, including queer creatives and allies to the community.
Next up, we're speaking to Femme stars Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay.
Trust us when we say you've never seen a revenge flick like Femme before.
Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping's debut feature starts with Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) proudly celebrating their queer identity through Aphrodite, a fierce drag alter ego. Things soon take a dark turn though when a thug named Preston (George MacKay) attacks Jules with his mates.
For months after, Jules is broken and Aphrodite is no more. That is, until Jules runs into his attacker in a gay sauna. But Preston doesn't recognise Jules out of drag, and so begins a plan to seduce him and exact revenge...
Digital Spy caught up with Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay to discuss Femme's moral complexity and how the film explores gender as performance.
Talk us through how you helped create the characters of Jules and Preston.
Nathan Stewart-Jarrett: We talked a lot about gender as performance so I really looked a lot at costume. I was keen to look at how I moved. As Aphrodite, I wanted to think about how things would make me more feminine, and what would that do to restrict my movement with the heels, nails and hair, how that informs character.
At the same point, when we were looking at the more masculine stuff, I wanted to look at what would make me feel free and help me embody masculinity – or how Jules embodied masculinity – which could also at times be a bit jarring because it wasn't something that you put on.
So I looked at that and tracked Jules's history, thinking about what led him up to that point. I wanted to start the film with Jules on a high, so it was like everything in his life to that point, whether it be up or down, led into a moment of pure joy. And then he meets Preston...
George MacKay: Similarly to Nathan, there was a lot of building Preston's backstory in this world. I spoke a lot privately with Sam and Ping about his sexual experience and things like that, as well as in terms of where he was from, what his family was like.
We made our own decisions about these little nuggets of information, like he's done time, but what was it for? What kind of crime was it? And what was that experience in prison like? All of those things coloured the man that you meet.
So much of it was down to our amazing costume designer, Buki [Ebiesuwa] and the clothes that she brought, because, as Nathan said, it's a film about performance, about drag.
Both Buki and Marie [Deehan], our makeup designer, elevated the parameters that I was thinking of. I was kind of thinking I don't want to go too far with everything, and I think my personal style is not as loud perhaps.
It was just the experience of having a real dress-up day basically and being like, "Is this too much?" Actually, no, it's not enough. Let's keep going.
Everything in the story is very meticulously thought-through, so we also thought about what Preston is presenting each time he meets Jules. Am I going to do the high-flying street businessman? Am I going to do the kind of casual fashionista? Am I going to do the '90s working-class British thing? Which Preston am I doing and why am I doing that? What do I want to make Jules feel in this scene?
Femme explores some really challenging moral areas with Jules trying to trick his attacker, but also falling for him too. With that in mind, what were your first reactions to reading the script?
GM: What I found fascinating was the complexity with these layers. You kind of think, "Oh, I get this. This is what it's saying. Oh, wow. Now we're exploring this," or "Now we're exploring this."
The pattern got deeper and deeper and deeper, and that I just thought was so fascinating and thrilling as a read. And also, as actors, the opportunity of going, "Wow. I get to play a couple of characters in one character, given the journey that they go on." Yet simultaneously, they really dig into some challenging areas.
So of course, you have that moment of "Phwoar. Okay." This is thrillingly compromising to read. So that feeling, that butterfly kind of feeling, is one to go towards.
NSJ: It's weird because I'm discovering more now thinking about it as well, but I actually liked the simplicity of the story. That I thought was really amazing. It's so Shakespearean or like a Greek tragedy, which is something the directors were really aware of. This is why they called Jules Aphrodite. There is something about the fall of this goddess and then having to conquer man... There's a simplicity to the storytelling that I think is genius.
You're not normally used to seeing these two particular characters on screen, certainly not interacting with each other in this way. So there was something really fresh and kind of confronting about it, but also quite familiar.
Your characters have really strong sexual chemistry, but again, there's so many layers to that, be it shame or fear or the secrets they hide. Was it challenging to balance all these elements while still making their connection believable?
NSJ: We had an amazing intimacy coordinator, Robbie Taylor [Hunt], who really created the arena for that. Some of the most giggly days were those days. I think setting up the parameters, the degrees of trust...
It's like you can go into this room, everything that happens has to remain in this room, we can do anything in this room, but once we leave the room, that is done. I think the parameters being so clear and defined so we have freedom in that room was really amazing.
Even though it was difficult, I think we had a such a degree of trust. I never felt lonely in those moments, those intimate scenes. You often get feathered and powdered, ride up like a boxer, and then you're presented like this for hours. You're presented to each other, and they're like, "Now do the scene!" It didn't feel like that.
To me, it was a really trusting and safe environment, which meant that we could explore that intimacy with the characters. It wasn't, "Now you're naked. Let's go."
GM: Robbie was really amazing. And I think again, the level of storytelling in those sex scenes kind of helped answer that. We knew what we were doing.
As much as we were in safe parameters, we also knew this is very much a story thing. This is not, "Oh, it's a bit embarrassing because we're both going to be naked together." This is a scene. This is a dramatic scene with which there's a journey within the scene. So that helped us understand and commit to those moments as well.
Sex is so integral to this story and cinema in general, but there's been a recent pushback online where some people have begun questioning whether we need these kind of scenes on screen at all. What do you both think about the the nature of sex in narrative storytelling like this?
NSJ: If it's necessary, it's necessary. Obviously you don't want it to be about that. I don't think Femme is about that, but if it's part of the makeup of the story, or the world... I watched Rotting in the Sun recently, and there's a lot of sex, but it just felt like part of the world.
Sure, we are adults and have sex and we need to depict that sometimes, not all the time. And I think that obviously we have to navigate things that we hadn't previously been able to navigate and gratefully respect safety, consent, with these things on a set, but actually sex being in culture?
Not that everything should be on screen that we do off screen, but it's definitely a big part of our lives, and certainly part of stories.
GM: I totally agree with Nathan. I think if it's a part of the story, then you've got to tell the story. If it's ever used for anything other than that, then it's a different conversation. If it's part of the story, then it's the same as a fight scene, same as a talking scene, same as a chase scene.
There's a lot of tension embedded throughout Femme, and not just in a sexual sense either. Was it difficult to switch off after filming each day or was it easy to separate your time on set from your own personal lives?
GM: No, there was actually a really joyous energy. There was a great amount of energy on set and I don't mean that to sound kind of "Woo woo", but there was a a vibe and there was an energy about the making of it.
I didn't feel like it bled into my day-to-day because again, these are such brilliant characters. The writing in this is so good. This is a dream of a script. This is a dream pair of roles to get and so you just felt like it was really enjoyable to play. You get a really meaty piece of material, a quality piece of material, you're like, "I'm having so much fun".
NSJ: I'm just thinking about the big fight scene at the end. We were so in it, but there was also a lot of care on set, a really, really loving and enjoyable energy. So even during this process, yes, there were tense moments, but then something would happen and we would both switch out of that tension.
We had fun. We enjoyed what we were bringing to it and the characters were just huge. I really enjoyed embodying that. Even though there was tension, there was so much trust underneath it.
I had a scene by the front door, and they were really rushing to get it. It was quite emotional and I had like 15 people asking, "Are you okay?" after that moment, which is really lovely and actually very rare. Sometimes they rip the mic from you and they're like, "We're done. See you later!"
After we wrapped that last night, I basically had a moment where it closed the book, but that was in order to not carry it more, so it was enjoyable.
Given all that joy you both shared on set, what was your favourite aspect of working on this project?
GM: I'll make Nathan blush here, but it's working with Nathan. We had such good material to work with and we really get on. Nathan's a fantastic actor.
I always think of sports as an analogy. You want to play in the Champions League final. When you're on the Barcelona team, the football gets better, so it's really exciting to be a forward and have a midfielder who knows where to send those balls. I felt like we just really clicked and so just to work with Nathan on Sam and Ping's script was my favourite thing.
And also the way that Sam and Ping worked where they wanted to explore different versions of the scene. Like, okay, try this one like you're terrifying to him or you're terrified of being found out in this scene or whatever it was. We really got to dial up and down the levels so as an exercise in acting, and to do it with Nathan, that was my favourite thing. Which was every day, basically.
NSJ: It's completely the same for me. And that's why I keep talking about trust. I didn't feel lonely. We were there. Like we, that team. We were connected in that sense and that was definitely my favourite part of... I just felt like I could do anything because you were there on the other side or next to me and it was great.
What message do you hope people take from Femme after they've left the cinema?
GM: I hope that it sparks reflection and conversation about identity, about the elements of ourselves that we perform and the elements that we hide.
But genuinely, more than anything, and I don't mean this to be a sort of like, meaningless answer, but I hope people have fun in the cinema. Within all of those complexities, this is a really thrilling film. There's a speed to it, there's a vibe to it, there's a kind of energy to it, so I hope people go see in the cinema and and I hope they...
Sometimes you watch a project and it's beautiful, but it's a bit gentler or some things you feel slightly removed from so you enjoy it almost at a distance, whereas this, I think you really get inside of it. I hope people just have a great time and they see it. That's genuinely the main thing.
NSJ: I completely agree. I want it to be entertaining as a film, first and foremost.
I think we need to think about violence against queer people. We need to talk about it. It happens constantly and I think we open up that subject.
We talk about identity, we talk about toxic masculinity. These are things that we should be talking about and we should be confronting in cinema. We have to have people that we don't always see on screen. All of those things should be in place.
But like George, I fundamentally want it to be a film and for it to be entertaining, to be thrilling, to be confronting. We're asking all those questions within the medium, but you still have to serve the medium.
Femme is out now in UK cinemas.
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