George MacKay became one Hollywood’s most sought after young actors after his starring role as a sweet-faced solider in Sam Mendes’ Oscar-winning “1917.” But he’s looking much different in his latest film, “ Femme .” He stars in the queer revenge thriller from directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping as a closeted street thug who begins a sexual relationship with Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), a man he doesn’t realize is the drag
Queen he once brutally gay-bashed. For the film, MacKay’s body is ripped and covered in tattoos. His hair is shaved and slicked back. He wears tracksuits and garish gold chains and rings, and his working class accent can be hard to decipher. It took him about eight weeks of “bulking” to get in shape. Even so, MacKay admits he did a lot of push-ups for scenes where he had to be particularly “big and scary.” “There is a lot of jumping up and down and tensing up beforehand,” he tells me on the latest episode of the “ Just for Variety ” podcast. Preston’s confidence to dominate couldn’t be doubted. “He’s going, ‘I’m doing this because it makes me feel good and it makes me feel strong,'” MacKay explains. “And there is something fundamental about going, ‘I reckon I’m the strongest in the room here. And I reckon you can see that’ … It’s an animal thing. It’s rules of the jungle. I’m the biggest lion here.” MacKay also stars opposite Léa Seydoux in “La Bête,” or “The Beast.” Directed and co-written by Bertrand Bonello, the film is inspired by Henry James’s 1903 novella “The Beast in the Jungle.” Seydoux and MacKay play a couple whose romance is played out in three different time periods: 1910, 1914 and 2044. “It’s the story of a couple who are soulmates trapped on a loop in time,” MacKay explains. “Without giving too much away here, what draws them together is potentially what keeps them apart. It’s a relationship that you watch in various iterations throughout time because these people are fated to be together.” Next up, MacKay would love to tackle an action movie. “I do like physical roles,” he says. “I like opportunities to be physical … I love the ‘Bourne’ films so maybe a really smart action thing would be fun.” I suggest MacKay could be the next
James Bond. MacKay is often included on lists of actors who could play 007. “Manifest it,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re thinking. It sort of pops up now and again in the news, isn’t it? ‘Oh, such and such is going to be it.’ And then who knows where it’s at.” MacKay has been acting since 2003, when he made his debut as Curly in “Peter Pan” after he was discovered by an acting scout at school. His list of credits is extensive across television and film. And there’s one audition he’ll never forget, even if he didn’t land the part. His mom told him he was up for a role in a movie about Hannibal the Conqueror. “She got really into the history and she printed off all these pages of historical information about Hannibal and it’s the one audition that she was a bit sort of, ‘Go on, go on, show them you’ve done all of this.’” He continues, “And I went and I sat down with the casting lady and they’re like, ‘So in the first scene, the sister has been eaten.’ It was an origin story about Hannibal Lecter! And I had this whole wodge of things of this man traversing the Alps on elephants and my back pocket. It didn’t go badly, but was just a very near complete misunderstanding.” You can listen to the full interview with MacKay above or you can download “Just for Variety” wherever you find your favorite podcasts.