Dylan O’Brien did his best to make Twinless costar James Sweeney feel comfortable before erotically sucking his toes — but it wasn’t without its challenges.
“We were shooting in a real hotel, and there was a tub that I went [into] and I just scrubbed my foot pristinely clean, like, squeaky clean,” O’Brien, 34, exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the film’s release. “Then I just remember it tickling a lot. So when we were doing his coverage and I was off camera, I had to put a pillow over my face, because I was busting up laughing.”
Warning: spoilers below for Twinless.
The dark comedy follows Roman (O’Brien) and Dennis (Sweeney) after they cross paths while attending a support group following the death of their respective twins. The pair form a fast friendship that deepens over their shared losses, but the audience soon learns Dennis has a secret: he isn’t a twin at all, but a one night stand of Roman’s late twin, Rocky, who stalked Roman intentionally.
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While the duo’s bond deepens throughout the film, Dennis’ feelings for Roman — who identifies as straight — become blurred and ultimately reveal themselves in a pinnacle scene where Dennis gives Roman a foot massage. Taken by their intimacy, he begins to suck and lick on Roman’s toes, much to Roman’s surprise.
“It was a really slow zoom in, it tickled so much,” O’Brien told Us of the moment, with a laugh. “And I didn’t want to react and move the foot, but I was also, like, f***ing with [James] by, like, kind of wiggling [my toes] before, too. We were just cracking up. It was really, really funny. After every take, we were just dying. The whole crew was dying. It was the most insane moment.”
While a mouth-to-toe makeout scene may have been the most awkward moment between O’Brien and Sweeney — who also wrote and directed the film — it’s far from the only display of intimacy in the film. Twinless jumps back in time to reveal Dennis and Rocky’s flirtatious diner meet-cute before cutting to their all-night sexcapades and deep conversations under the covers.
For O’Brien — who previously said he doesn’t believe in sex scenes “just for the sake of sex” — it was imperative to showcase Rocky and Dennis’ deep, albeit brief, physical connection.
“In such a short amount of time we need to know so much about who this guy was,” O’Brien, who admitted it was “fun” to play someone who “owns” their sexuality, said of Rocky. “He [has] such a sexual energy. And I think that that was such a piece of him. He’s the kind of guy who can walk up to you at a shady diner and immediately let you know with his little sip and eyes that he wants to bang you.”
The more “inward” Roman, meanwhile, has his own intimate moments after meeting Marcie (Aisling Franciosi), who eventually becomes his girlfriend in the film, much to Dennis’ dismay. O’Brien noted that because Roman “struggles across the board” with being “open,” it was particularly poignant to show him connecting with another person, physically and emotionally.
“I love seeing Roman with Marcie, and what that brings out in him,” he explained. “From the moment she comes into his life, he gets so cute. He has these cute moments, these little silly, cute sides of him and, yeah, an intimate side to him in terms of his sexuality as well, which I think is really warming to see.”
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Twinless presented an array of juicy challenges for O’Brien as an actor, from NSFW scenes to shouldering the unbridled grief that develops after the death of a twin. As someone who has been “fortunate” enough to have never experienced loss too viscerally in his own personal life up to now, the actor found his own way to connect with Roman and navigate what he describes as a very “unique type of loss.”
“I think I’m a very sensitive human. I have other areas of deep pain that I have gone through in my life, and it felt in my world, certainly,” he told Us. “I’ve always been somebody who’s been really struck by other people’s experiences in a really deep way. So I was certainly struck by this piece as a whole. We’re talking about such a unique type of grief and a unique type of loss. When I first read it, I thought it was such a beautiful honoring of this existence on earth, one that I had never seen before, and one that I felt like was handled so respectfully and sensitively and beautifully.”
Twinless is in theaters now.
