Ira Sachs weighs in on straight actors playing queer roles after casting Rami Malek in The Man I Love
Set in 1980s New York City, the film follows performer Jimmy George (Malek), who is HIV positive, as he navigates the theatre industry while his health declines
By Aaron Sugg
Filmmaker Ira Sachs has opened up about casting Rami Malek and Tom Sturridge in the 2026 queer film The Man I Love.
Set in late-1980s New York City during the height of the AIDS crisis, the film follows performer Jimmy George (Malek), who is HIV positive, as he navigates the theatre industry while his health declines.
Sturridge plays Dennis, Jimmy’s boyfriend, who acts as his primary caregiver amid his loved one’s illness. The pair undergo a turbulent relationship as a passionate affair develops between Jimmy and his new neighbour Vincent (Luther Ford).
“I don’t ask people who they’ve slept with” – Ira Sachs on casting Rami Malek and Tom Sturridge for The Man I Love
Sachs, who is publicly gay, spoke to Variety about casting the pair as leading gay roles, weighing in on the straight actors playing queer characters debate.
“I don’t ask people who they’ve slept with, and what I have found out is you never know,” said the film’s director.
Malek is best known for portraying Freddie Mercury in the 2018 queer cult classic Bohemian Rhapsody, in which he also played an HIV-positive character.
“If there’s anything Freddie taught me, it was to address the fear” – Malek on taking on another queer role after Bohemian Rhapsody
The actor was initially hesitant to take on another queer role, admitting upon reading the script for The Man I Love, he thought, “I can’t do this.”
During a press conference at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, he said: “I started to really think about what I was afraid of… Was it the similarities? Was it the singing? Was it what was going on in the period?”
“I knew I had to address the fear. If there’s anything Freddie taught me, it was to address the fear,” he said, and was eventually swayed by Sachs’s several acclaimed queer projects.
Filmmaker Sachs is best known for his LGBTQ+ works, including Peter Hujar’s Day and Love Is Strange
Sachs’s work primarily focuses on LGBTQ+ storytelling. Through domestic dramas and semi-autobiographical films, he explores sexuality, gay health and queer desire.
His credits include Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Whishaw; Passages, starring Franz Rogowski; Love Is Strange, starring Alfred Molina and John Lithgow, as well as several other queer cult classics.
Sturridge is best recognised for his role as Dream in the Netflix fantasy series The Sandman, starring alongside seven siblings representing universal aspects of existence, including Desire, played by Mason Alexander Park.
The Man I Love premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, and, at the time of writing, does not have a slated release date.