Hermanus discussed the road to production, depictions of gay sex on screen and his anticipated biopic.

In Cannes 14 years ago, you won Queer Palme for “Beauty”

It’s quite strange because, 14 years later, it feels very much the same. Everyone’s got money, there’s lot of screaming and things are overpriced.

Getting two of the hottest actors for this indie?

Josh and I have the same agents in the U.K., and he read the short story around the same time as I did. We had a conversation, but then the world went into COVID lockdown, and I went back to South Africa. He said to please keep him in my brain when I have a screenplay ready. I met Paul when I cast him in “Living,” which he wound up not having time to do. He and Josh also met around the same time. The film was always almost falling apart, but it worked out for us in a nice way and their careers have obviously skyrocketed.

Financing?

I went door-to-door with this movie to all the obvious places. Many people crunched the numbers. I’m pretty sure there’s a literal machine at A24, a heavy old Oracle that shoots out fax with a number. It always says “$8 million,” no matter what. I really couldn’t do it for $8 million. Sara Murphy came on as  producer in late 2020 and we went to AFM and places like that. People said to me, “These guys are wonderful, but they’re TV stars.” Talking about Josh on “The Crown” and Paul in “Normal People.” Then Josh got “Challengers” and Paul got “Gladiator.” Around the Oscars in 2023, Paul and I were there and talked to anyone who would listen about this movie. Miraculously, this came together before they got way too old to play these roles.

It’s a very romantic story. It’s a profound concept of nostalgia and using the metaphor of sound for how we retain feelings. Before the 20th century, that wasn’t possible. How might it feel to hear your parents’ voices after they’re dead? And yearning is interesting thing to try to understand. We confuse yearning for obsession and unrequited love. You can long for someone, and not just because they aren’t there.

This film is set in 1917

It’s 2025, and queer audiences want more. We’ve all seen a lot of tropes, especially when it comes to biopics. I’m working on one right now about Alexander McQueen. He was a gay man, HIV positive, artist, genius, living in the world of fashion with addiction, and then there’s suicide. I remember watching [Ryan Murphy’s] “Halston,” and seeing there is a path of queer people being successful and celebrated and flying too close to the sun. They are incinerated in some tragic ending. I think it sticks in our heads that that our lives could potentially go down this path, when our sexuality and lifestyles have a danger or sadness to them. All the secrecy and repression. I’ve made one, my film “Beauty.” But I’d like to offer audiences something else, a different queer experience.

Gay sex on screen?

I love films that have raw sexuality, it’ll take a lot for me to be shocked or feel endangered by queer sex. I made a TV show in 2023 called “Mary and George,” and we would stand on set trying to think of new sex positions. I would turn to Nicholas Galitzine and say, “What have you not done?” He would go, “I got fucked that way yesterday. I already did an orgy with that guy the other day. I topped that guy and bottomed for the other.” The intimacy coordinator would come over with an iPad and flip through new positions. It was the point where I was just trying to differentiate French orgy from a British one, like Legos.

There are moments, but I was very determined to not have the assumptions of sex scenes be pivotal, or gear changes in their relationship. That’s not the film. They stick together from the first day they meet.  I love the moments that bring sex about, and then the moments after. Josh’s character has amazing thing where he keeps collecting all the feathers falling out of Paul’s pillow and stuffing them back in. That’s romance.

Josh and Paul set out to chronicle folk music 

Tradition is such an interesting American theme. We think of America as young country compared to Europe, but there’s long history and it’s fascinating to see these roots. You find the songs Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone sang, the songs that Joni Mitchell sang. This process of other people coming from Ireland and England and Africa to the U.S. to converge into a tapestry. The music goes way back and carries religious and racial context, especially roots in slavery. It shows you how rooted America is as a country of immigrants.

Steve McQueen biopic?

I inherited this after it was in development for many years. I’ve started from scratch. My friend Harry Lighton [director of this year’s Cannes entry “Pillion”] wrote the screenplay. McQueen is a hard one: How do you make a biopic about a man who defies a biopic? It has to be form and genre bending.

Costume becomes the most important thing?

The great Sandy Powell, who I worked with on “Living,” and I have been talking a lot about McQueen. If the art of the movie is fashion, that’s really a meta moment for someone like Sandy to achieve. It’s one of our biggest challenges. If you did a movie about Da Vinci, do you just print out the Mona Lisa? Or do you have someone repaint it?