Born and raised in Chicago, Palestinian American actor and filmmaker Laith Khalifeh, makes his captivating film acting debut as the protagonist in Lucio Castro’s sensual and evocative third feature, Drunken Noodles, which world premiered at ACID Cannes. Khalifeh plays Adnan, a contemplative but open and curious art student who arrives in Brooklyn for the summer where he has an internship at a hip gallery exhibiting the work of an unconventional older gay artist. As moments from the young man’s past and present begin to intertwine, a series of encounters—both artistic and sexual—open cracks in his everyday reality.
Following End of the Century (Fin de siglo) and After This Death, Castro’s latest feature was initially inspired by the life and work of erotic thread painting artist Sal Salandra, who spoke in-depth with The Queer Review about his artistic process last summer. Ultimately about desire and human connection, Drunken Noodles is an alluring work that plays with the boundaries of fantasy and reality. As it unfurls, like one of Salanadra’s tapestries, we gradually discover more about Adnan through his interactions with those he encounters, including his lover (Matthew Risch), the older artist (Ezriel Kornel), and a poetic delivery guy (Joél Isaac).
Now based in New York City, Khalifeh received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an emphasis in film. He went on to further his film studies in Cuba and his acting training with Second City Chicago and the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute. His debut short as writer-director, Para Vermecierro Los Ojos, was developed under the guidance of filmmakers Lucrecia Martel, João Salaviza, and Renée Nader.
Ahead of the US theatrical release of Drunken Noodles beginning June 26th from Strand Releasing, Laith Khalifeh speaks with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about how he landed the role, his collaboration with Lucio Castro, his own approach filmmaking, and his admiration for the work of Nan Goldin. With exclusive photography for The Queer Review by Steven Menendez shot on location at New York’s iconic gay bar and nightclub The Monster at 80 Grove Street, which first opened its doors in the West Village in 1982 as a spin-off of its legendary Fire Island flagship location.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: you’ve got a background in photography and filmmaking, how did acting come into your life?
Laith Khalifeh: “I kind of stumbled into it. My interest has always been in writing and directing. I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which is a very traditional fine art school, but it’s interdisciplinary so they make you do everything. I really enjoyed the film program, so I stayed in that and it’s always been my direction in life. Because it’s an art school, it’s not that heavy on the technicalities, so we didn’t learn too much about working with actors.”
“After I graduated, I started taking acting classes to understand how to communicate better with actors and ended up really enjoying it. People asked me to do scenes with them and it developed into something that I found meaning in and another way to communicate in film. It blossomed from there and I started taking more classes, doing more short films, and then eventually Drunken Noodles happened.”
How did you come to be involved in Drunken Noodles?
“It popped up out of nowhere. In May 2024, I received a message from Lucio Castro on Backstage, a casting platform for actors which I hadn’t been using because I was so accustomed to not finding jobs on it! I actually forgot I that even had the page, but I got a message from him saying that he was looking for actors. We ended up having a virtual meeting via Zoom and found out we had a lot in common; filmmakers that we both really enjoyed and other influences. He told me that he’d definitely keep me in mind. Then every few weeks he would tell me how he’d developed the character further and let me know if he’d written any new scenes. Then eventually he asked if I wanted to be a part of it, and I did.”
So Lucio was casting while he was still writing the screenplay?
“That’s right. I don’t want to speak for his entire practice, but I do know from this film specifically that he was pulling from friends and experiences that he’d had, as well as from the actors. We’re friends now, but at that point we didn’t know each other, so we had a lot of conversations about our lives and I think he was using some of that to inform my character. My character has an Arabic name, Adnan, so that feeds into my own Arab heritage. I think there were other influences here and there from our conversations. I don’t want to say it’s me, because it’s not, but all the characters were informed by the people that he was casting.”
What is your heritage?
“I’m Palestinian.”
Where did you grow up?
“I was born and raised in Chicago.”
So you had a great art school right in your city.
“Yeah, a lot of great filmmakers have studied there. Hong Sang-soo was there in the 90s. Apichatpong Weerasethakul went there also.”
Who were some of the filmmakers that you and Lucio found out you both admired when you first spoke?
“There so were many. Lucrecia Martel is one of my favorite filmmakers and she’s Argentinian, like Lucio, so of course he knew her and we both love her work. In terms of Drunken Noodles specifically and filmmakers who were big influences on both of us, we talked about Hong Sang-soo, Éric Rohmer, and Apichatpong.”
Tell me a bit more about Adnan and your approach to playing him.
“In my view, the character itself isn’t a traditional protagonist. There’s not a clearly delineated plot line that you can really follow. The emphasis isn’t on drama and resolution with him. It’s more about him being this gravitational and emotional anchor for these people that he’s encountering, for them to reflect off him and for him to reflect off them. He’s so melancholic and a bit passive. He opens up and lets these invitations come to him. He says ‘yes’ to whatever, whether it’s a sexual encounter or meeting somebody on a trip. I think that kind of passivity in his character is important because he’s someone who has this rich interior life, but he doesn’t necessarily have access to that. He’s trying to access it and I think that’s where his melancholic energy comes from within him. That’s an interesting starting point for any character and he is the force that threads through the entire film.”
He’s an observer isn’t he?
“Yeah, he’s always looking.”
The film was inspired by the work of artist Sal Salandra and a character inspired by him is portrayed by Ezriel Kornel in the film. What do you make of Sal’s work and did you get to meet him?
“Lucio didn’t know this until after we were done filming, but I actually have a background with embroidery myself. I sometimes work for my friend Jordan Nassar, a Palestinian artist based in New York who does traditional embroidery or tapestry, but with his own spin on it. On and off for years, I’ve worked as a studio assistant helping him to finish his pieces. So there’s my own personal tie to embroidery.”
“I love Sals’ work. It’s very cheeky. It uses cartoon or childhood reference points to talk about these taboos. It’s a really interesting convergence of worlds. It’s really playful too, which is important for the film because the film is about play. It’s about exploring. It’s about opening yourself up and discovery. So I think that’s a really great parallel that the two have. Also, Sal’s such a great person, I love being around him.”
I love the film’s approach to sex, tonally and visually, like the tableaux of Adnan with the delivery guys in their jockstraps. It feels like one of Sal’s thread paintings come to life. While the cruising in the park might seem like a fleeting anonymous encounter with Yariel, played by Joél Isaac, but there’s such a strong connection between them. It’s the kind of queer sex that we don’t see that much on screen.
“Definitely. Actually, I think it’s the type of sex that we don’t really see at all on screen, regardless of orientation. It’s so matter of fact, it’s so part of life. It’s not highlighted in a way where it’s this dramatic point. It’s just part of the these characters lives in the way that it’s part of all of our lives. I really appreciate that approach. It’s not treated as something extraordinary. I think that’s really great.”
It’s more of an issue when there’s no sex happening between Adnan and his boyfriend, Iggie, played by Matthew Risch.
“That’s right.”
How was your experience of working with him and the rest of the cast?
“They were all fantastic to work with. I had a particularly good experience with Matt. He has a ton more experience than me with acting and I really appreciated the way that he made me very comfortable and immediately at ease. We got on well and would joke in between takes. I felt led by him in a way and he really helped me to open up and explore in our scenes.”
Let’s talk about Lucio. What kind of atmosphere does he create on set and what was he like to collaborate with?
“He was fantastic to work with. We didn’t do any traditional rehearsing. We’d go over the scenes but we didn’t stage them or anything which I really appreciated. Everything was conversation based and from those conversations we understood the direction of the scene and we worked from there. It felt very natural. He makes everybody comfortable and you immediately feel in the moment. I love the atmosphere he sets. With it being such a small cast and crew, it felt very intimate all the time. I felt like I had a personal connection with everybody on set.”
“Lucio’s very trusting in his cast. He sets the scene, we do it, and if it’s good we move on. If he wants to tweak something then he’ll ask, but he trusts that whatever conversation we had informed how you’re going to play the scene. It was an extremely collaborative experience.”
Had you watched either of his previous films before starting work on Drunken Noodles?
“I’d already seen End of the Century, but I didn’t realize he’d made that film until he was telling me about himself and his filmography in our first meeting. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that and I really loved it.’ That was a really an exciting moment. As soon as I realized he’d made End of the Century I knew wanted to work with him.”
What are you focused on right now in terms of your own filmmaking?
“I’m finishing up the edit on a short film that I made in Cuba while I was at film school there. It has to do with a cowboy in the countryside who is unsatisfied with his life and trying to understand how to change the path he’s on. He works every day with his father on the farm herding the cows and one day when he’s going to get his rations in town he encounters his sister. They’ve had a fracture in their relationship and she has left the farm. He also encounters their childhood friend and we discover that they have a past together. So it’s about confronting these fractures in their relationships.”
“I wrote the script and shot the film with actors but I also worked with a lot of non-actors in real living spaces. I worked with actual farmers and cowboys in the fields and we shot in existing bars and cafés. So it felt like it was half narrative and half documentary in terms of the approach to filming. That experience really informed how I want to work in the future in terms of exploring how I can make films that are immediate and less planned out. I’d like to continue working with with non-actors in spaces that are alive. I’m also prepping for another short that I’m going to be shooting this summer in Madrid.”
Lastly, what’s your favorite piece of LGBTQ+ culture, or a person who identifies as LGBTQ+; someone or something that’s had an impact on you and resonated with you?
“The poetry of Federico García Lorca has always been really important and influential to me. As you were asking the question, I also started thinking about Jean Cocteau because I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, especially his film Orpheus, which I love. But I’m going to say the work of Nan Goldin. She is the artist who has had the biggest influence on me. The thing that I appreciate so much about her is how her work feels so real and genuine and lived in. Her work feels so engaged with life and the relationships and experiences that she’s had. It’s not this isolated, independent approach, it’s about her broader community. She really engages with and lives with that.”
“I really appreciate how she engages with the people around her. You can feel how important that is to her and it so happens that she does have a queer community around her. There’s a lot to glean from that, whether you’re a photographer, filmmaker, actor, or fine artist. It teaches you to not only engage with yourself and how you’re responding to the world but also to the people around you. You want to understand them. You want to be with them and live with them. That’s something that I have to remind myself to do. As an artist, you can get a little turned inwards sometimes. We have to remember to be outward facing, to turn out towards the people around us.”
That goes back to what you were saying about Lucio’s artistic process for this film in the way he was influenced by his friends and the cast as well as his own experiences.
“Definitely. He didn’t have a solitary vision. It resonates with the way he works on set too. I can only talk specifically about Drunken Noodles, but I know he works this way on his other films too. The crew is small and tight-knit. It’s people that he knows, friendships that he’s had for many years, if not decades, and people that he’s worked with before. That’s beautiful and really special. To be able to make a film that’s being seen around the world by so many people that’s made from such a close place of love and care by people that also love and care for each other, there’s nothing better than that.”
By James Kleinmann
Drunken Noodles world premiered at ACID Cannes and has gone on to play BFI Flare London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. It will open theatrically in the United States beginning June 26th, 2026 via Strand Releasing. Follow Laith Khalifeh on Instagram @laith.khalifeh.
For more on photographer Steven Menendez visit his official website and follow him on Instagram @steven_menendez_official.
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