‘Special’ creator Ryan O’Connell felt ‘f**king cheated’ with the lack of sex in ‘Call Me By Your Name’
The actor and director based the new Netflix series on his part-memoir, part-manifesto
By Steve Brown
Special creator and star Ryan O’Connell felt ‘fucking cheated’ with the lack of sex scenes in Call Me By Your Name.
Based around O’Connell’s part-memoir, part-manifesto ‘I’m Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves’, the new Netflix series will run for eight episodes on the streaming giant and is produced by Jim Parson’s company, That’s Wonderful Productions.
And judging from the trailer, the series – which is available to stream as of today (April 12) – features a lot of awkward sex scenes and O’Connell admitted he is ‘genuinely confused’ as to why gay sex hasn’t been given the ‘Girls treatment’.
He told Teen Vogue: “Because I had never seen it before, and I don’t know why! I’m genuinely confused as to why gay sex has not been given the Girls treatment.
“I feel like when I watched Girls, I was watching sex scenes I had never seen before.
“The sex in those scenes was how I understood sex to be, which was sometimes awkward or humiliating, but also sexy. But I’d never seen that before.
“Then, when I saw Call Me By Your Name, and they panned away to the moon, I felt so fucking cheated. It was honestly so offensive to me.
“I don’t want to make things for the straight audience. I don’t care about dulling the edges of the gay experience so straight people can consume it.
“I want to make gay shit, and I want to make gay shit for gay people.
“I felt like having a gay sex scene that was how I’d experienced gay sex, and how my friends had experienced gay sex.
“It felt like a no brainer. How else would I depict it? It was very important to me that we get it right.
“I’m happy people are talking about it, but at the same time, this should have happened forever ago.
“Like people are excited and saying they’ve never seen it before, but also like let’s do better, so next time it’s not so ground-breaking.”
Watch the trailer for Special below: