‘Haunted and horny’: Joseph Quinn and Luna Carmoon on Versace’s new era

Dario Vitale’s Versace debut made Luna Carmoon feel like a child whose underwear had just been stolen. The 26-year-old screenwriter and director came to the realisation in September, when she was watching Vitale’s inaugural collection materialise on the runway in Milan. “I felt how I felt when I was a child and some random man was stealing my knickers at the local swimming baths,” she remembers. “All green tiles and hard wood – and it was so warm.” Of course, now, Carmoon recognises the unavoidable darkness in the incident, but at the time the rush of feelings were less distilled, like a murky broth of liberty and deviance with chlorine hanging in the air. “It was that pre-pubescent feeling that ‘something’ was happening to me, and I felt that way after watching the show.”

Carmoon immediately wrote to Vitale, letting the incumbent creative director know she felt ‘haunted and horny’ when faced with his work. Struck by her descriptions, Vitale asked Carmoon to produce an original script that invoked the feeling of her letter, to release as an accompaniment to the new Greca eyewear campaign, his first set of photographs for the house. The work that followed was called Room Six, a two-page scene set in a roadside motel where main characters Stevie and Terry (played by Aimee Lou Wood and Joseph Quinn) tread a highwire of sexual tension, navigating their ambiguous romantic past while surrounded by “layers of dirt”. We’ve seen Carmoon wield the same lustful and animal tone for her debut feature Hoard, the 2023 coming-of-age drama about a teenager dealing with the traumatic consequences of being raised by a hoarder. It was a happy accident that the film’s lead, Quinn, was also the star of Vitale’s new Greca campaign.

“It was a lovely surprise that Luna was involved,” says the actor of their Versace reunion. Quinn is known to most for his breakout role in Stranger Things, plus blockbuster appearances in A Quiet Place, Fantastic Four and Gladiator II – and yet his roster extends far beyond franchise titles. Before Netflix came knocking, Quinn was making a name for himself on the stage and small screen, in the BBC’s Les Misérables, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, and Jean Genet’s Deathwatch. It was his turn as Leonard Bast in a TV adaptation of Howard’s End that alerted Carmoon to his talents, and the pair’s collaboration on Hoard grew into a budding artist-muse relationship.  

Below, the pair reunite to talk about their cinematic partnership, clothing as a creative frame of reference, and Versace’s “haunting and exciting” new direction.

Hello Joseph and Luna. First of all, I was wondering how you both ended up back together for this Versace campaign?

Joseph Quinn: I actually don’t know how this happened. Did they get you first Luna, what was the deal?

Luna Carmoon: I can’t really remember the timeline!

Joseph Quinn: I’m not sure either. I think we signed up to do the campaign independently. I don’t think we were brought in at the same time, to my knowledge, but it was a lovely surprise that Luna was involved.

Luna Carmoon: I just think the universe keeps bringing us together.

So how did you guys first meet?

Joseph Quinn: I was summoned by the magnet that is Luna Carmoon.

Luna Carmoon: He was.

Joseph Quinn: I was invited to audition for her, very fortunately, to participate in the making of her debut feature film Hoard. My agent sent this pitch deck that didn’t really feel like a conventional idea – it felt very obscure and very intriguing. Then I watched Luna’s short films and was struck by her distinct eye. She just felt like a very interesting new voice. The fact that she was a south Londoner was also nice – you can trust them. How did you meet me Luna?

Luna Carmoon: I met you through the TV screen, first of all, with your black marble eyes. It was my sister who reminded me of how much we loved you in Howard’s End. She was like, ‘That’s Michael [the lead character in Hoard],’ and I was like, ‘You’re so right’. Then we Zoomed, and I remember feeling so disassociated I thought I was going to faint on that call. I got a real sense of vertigo, but thought ‘Oh no, you can’t faint. Not today, not here, not now, because this is your Michael.’

I turned the script over very fast. I was sort of in this weird trance for a couple of days – Luna Carmoon

The cinematic universe that Luna created with Hoard seems worlds apart from a fashion campaign. What was it like for both of you inhabiting this new perspective in comparison to your usual lens?

Joseph Quinn: The thing is, every environment that you step into as an actor, you’re kind of at the mercy of whatever experience is happening before you, as many people are in life. It’s your job to adapt and make sense of it. Some environments are more agreeable, some are not where you want to be. I actually had a really good time on the set of this Versace campaign. Anuschka [Blommers] and Niels [Schumm] have an incredible aesthetic, and getting to work with Aimee [Lou Wood] in that context was really fun. But, yeah, it was obviously very different to making an independent film in Hither Green, but variety is the spice of life, wouldn’t you agree, Luna Carmoon?

Luna Carmoon: Absolutely. I mean, it all sort of happened with the weirdest synchronicities. I went to the [SS26] Versace show in Italy, and I felt how I felt when I was a child and some random man was stealing my knickers at the local swimming baths. The show made me feel how I felt that very day, all green tiles and hard wood – and it was so warm. I remember feeling quite free that my underpants had been stolen, but I didn’t quite understand the intensity and perhaps the darkness of it, but I was soaking wet and the breeze came up my skirt and I was like, ‘this is great!’ I think it was that pre-pubescent feeling that ‘something’ was happening to me, and I felt that way after watching the show. The collection felt really sexual but sexless, gender fluid and strange, and that’s how I felt that day at the swimming baths.

I wrote a letter to Dario and I said that the show made me feel ‘haunted and horny’. Then I was presented the idea of this Greca campaign, and they asked if I could write something that invokes the feeling of my letter. I did what I usually do, which was dig into my diaries, and all of my weird poems or dreams or memories. I picked and pulled from them – and from what I felt about the campaign images, and from the people involved – and there arrived this suggestively strange scene. I turned it over very fast. I was sort of in this weird trance for a couple of days.

There’s so many associations that spring to mind when you say the word Versace. What does the name mean to you, and how did you want to honour or subvert those meanings for this project?

Joseph Quinn: I mean, obviously it’s a house steeped in so much history. It’s dressed the likes of Madonna, Prince… and Luna Carmoon. You know, these are big hitters. Candidly, I couldn’t believe that I was asked to get involved. It’s a long way from what I was used to growing up – I wasn’t wearing any Versace back then. But in terms of subversion, Dario is coming in and he’s bringing his own voice – very brilliantly, provocatively and delicately – to the house. So you want to make sure that you’re doing right by him and his vision, and also trying to have fun with it. I think, with anything, if you go in with too much reverence, you can lose a feeling of creativity. So if I’m going to get all my kit off, I’ve got to have fun doing it.

Luna Carmoon: With Versace, I’d always thought of hyper-femininity and very intense glamour, so I wasn’t expecting at all what I experienced at the show. What I was met with – and why I understood why I was invited – was actually very gender fluid and quite strange. The music choices were beautiful, and I think Versace has completely been subverted because of Dario. As soon as you meet him, and you get that feeling for him, you understand exactly what he’s about.

At first I thought, ‘why was I invited here? I don’t understand.’ But as soon as I walked through those doors and I saw that set, and as soon as the show began, I was like, ‘Oh – this is quite carnal and animal, and there’s something strange in the air that hasn’t been here before.’ I said to Dario afterwards, ‘Versace means something completely different to me now.’ Now, when I say the word and it’s in my mouth, it no longer feels like hyper-pop culture or hyper-glamour. It feels like skin, and like wood, and feeling those sexy feelings for the first time. It felt quite haunting and exciting, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

Joseph, how did Luna’s Versace script make you feel when you first read it?

Joseph Quinn: Luna is an incredibly evocative writer. She’s able to take you places. There’s a literacy that is very provocative and unexpected, but also kind of familiar. Luna’s brilliant at blending nostalgia and things that feel familiar with – I don’t want to use the word dark – but with things that aren’t sanitised. She makes me feel things as a person, being around her, in her company – sorry, we’re talking about you in front of you – but she evokes these feelings in both her work and in her company, and there was no surprise that she was able to do that with the script for this Versace campaign as well.

Luna Carmoon: Joe is one of my muses who just gets my language straight away. It’s no surprise you did that Jean Genet play [Deathwatch]. How old were you when you did that? Quite young?

Joseph Quinn: I think I was 24 or 25. I was older than you were when you directed your first feature, which is depressing.

All the little decisions, these little micro signals we put into the world that are like little non-verbal declarations of ourselves, clothes fall into that bracket – Joseph Quinn

How similar is acting in a play or film to being in a fashion campaign? Do you have to inhabit a character in a similar way?

Joseph Quinn: The relationship between the photographer and the subject, regardless of whether it’s a fashion campaign or anything, that is what it’s about. [A campaign] doesn’t take me to the kind of dizzying heights that inhabiting a character in a film or TV show does, but wearing different clothes does make you feel different things. Anuschka and Niels moved so efficiently and they had such wonderful ideas and I remember just feeling inspired by it.

You just mentioned the idea of clothes that ‘make you feel’. In that same vein, do either of you ever use clothing as a frame of reference in your work, or as a way into a character or script?

Luna Carmoon: Absolutely. An item of clothing can make you understand a character straight away. Whether they’re having a sensory experience with the clothes, playing with the zip. For my next project, clothes are something that I’m constantly using to tell you where we’re at within the story, because there’s a lot of brutal jumps back and forth. Clothes are such a psychological thermometer of where a character is at.

Joseph Quinn: You can be working on a character and what shoes they wear can give you that feeling of ‘oh, I’ve got them now’. When you’re playing a character, sometimes you find yourself – God, it sounds so fucking lofty and pretentious – but you do find yourself dressing a bit differently.

Luna Carmoon: Even when I’m writing, I feel like I write better if I’ve got an item of clothing on. When I wrote Hoard I wore these ski pants that had suspenders on for the entire time, and I didn’t wash them at all. It was very much like I was ‘method writing’ Hoard in that way. Every morning I put them on in my cold shed and wrote, I just thought ‘I’m part of that world now.’

Joseph Quinn: All the little decisions, these little micro signals we put into the world that are like little non-verbal declarations of ourselves, clothes fall into that bracket. Whether it’s a fur coat or a Versace tank top, it’s saying something, isn’t it.

In what other ways have you felt inspired by each other since meeting?

Luna Carmoon: I feel like we have a really strong understanding of making the same things when we’re working together. It’s a real creative partnership, and I trust Joe deeply with my words. You just had an innate understanding of the language of my worlds. I didn’t  have to teach you the rhythm, it just came out the same way it was inside of me. It’s always magical when you spend years writing something inside your head, and then someone else can conjure it out just as you seemed. We really got to play on Hoard, and I’m sure we will again, hopefully sometime soon.

Joseph Quinn: It’s one of those rare things, but when you’re watching someone do what they’re meant to do, in the fact that it was Luna’s first feature film. It’s like watching a bird take flight. It’s like, that is someone doing what they’re fucking meant to do. I felt very privileged to be a part of what I believe to be a generational voice in cinema telling their first story in a feature-length context. It was thrilling to watch, it was thrilling to participate in, and, smugly, it’s nice being right! Because, to see the industry’s response to Luna, it’s not my thing to be proud of, but I am very, very smug that people have received her in the way that she deserves to be received.

Scroll through the gallery at the top of the page to see the entire Greca campaign.