Daniel Craig talks ‘Queer’ role: “It wouldn’t have worked when I was doing Bond”

Queer is only the second movie Daniel Craig has made since his final appearance as James Bond in 2021’s No Time To Die. On either side of that, he debuted and returned as ‘Kentucky fried detective’ Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and Glass Onion, respectively. It is understandable, then, that Craig’s first non-Bond/Blanc performance in seven years — as lonely, heroin-­addicted Mexico City-based writer William Lee in Luca Guadagnino’s psychedelic love story — should have been described as a ‘departure’ for the 56-year-old actor. After all, he has gone from hugely popular mainstream entertainments to a deeply personal William S Burroughs adaptation featuring explicit sex, opiates and hallucinogens. Yet the reality is more complex: Queer is less a departure for Craig than a return. 

“I recognised that it was in my wheelhouse,” says Craig of the role, when Guadagnino — with whom the actor has wanted to work “for a long time” — first offered it to him. “It was something I could just tune into. The sort of movie I used to make, and I’ve always loved doing them.”

He is referring to the indie-drama likes of 1998’s Love Is The Devil, in which he played George Dyer, the troublesome young lover to artist Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi), and 2006’s Infamous, in which he played Death Row prisoner Perry Smith. Craig does recognise, however, that if he had still been active On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he might have had to turn down Guadagnino. “It wouldn’t have worked when I was doing Bond,” he says. “It would have been too problematic. It would have raised the wrong arguments.”

When Screen International suggests that Queer — which premiered in Venice’s Competition and released in the US in November through A24 before coming to UK cinemas in December via Mubi — might represent a new post-007 era of boundless liberation for Craig, he laughs. “I just don’t look at it in those terms. I mean, it’s a nice idea but I’m just enjoying myself. Contrary to a lot of opinion, I enjoyed doing Bond. So I am enjoying myself.” 

He does admit that, when it comes to choosing roles, he is “much more discerning”. If this is a new phase, then it is one defined by careful selection and consideration. “If I’m going to do a job, it’s because I really, really want to do it,” he says. “I’m so fortunate to be getting things put my way like Queer. But I wouldn’t want to do anything else in the year. I wouldn’t want to do two of these jobs in one year. That would be too much. I don’t have the brain space.” 

Fact and fiction

While the role was firmly in the Craig “wheelhouse”, already netting him a European Film Award nomination for best European actor, playing William Lee — a thinly veiled avatar for Burroughs himself — was, the actor says, “very, very challenging”. First, in terms of finding Lee’s specific voice. “It’s Burroughs, but it’s not Burroughs. William Lee is a construct, a fictional character, but he obviously based it on himself.” So while he knew he did not need to do an impression of the infamous Beat writer, it did require him to tease out the details of the man — his loneliness, his intelligence, his addiction — and immerse himself in them before the shoot. “You try to absorb it and learn it and get on top of it and try to get it inside yourself,” he says. 

Then there was the challenge of evoking all the tenderness and intimacy of the film’s love scenes, which were primarily performed with newcomer Drew Starkey as Eugene Allerton, Lee’s object of infatuation. The most memorable of these occurs at the film’s climax, when the two men take ayahuasca and perform a fevered kind of dance, where their bodies meld and flow into each other. 

“We rehearsed a long dance routine, for want of a better expression — it’s not exactly tap!” laughs Craig. “But I worked with Drew on it in New York, before we even began filming [in Cinecitta Studios, Italy], and we worked with some brilliant choreo­graphers and just got to know each other very quickly.” Such preparation helped when it came to shooting the more conventional sex scenes. “Also, he’s a grown-up. And I kind of think I’m a grown-up. And we just went, ‘Well, let’s get it right. Let’s make it perfect. Let’s make it real.’ That’s the only thing that matters.”

Craig’s approach was more instinctive for the scenes in which he had to portray Lee’s profound isolation, whether drinking himself into a stupor at a bar or shooting up heroin in his garret. “I’ve not felt that amount of loneliness in my life,” he says, “but I could relate to it and make sense of that. You can’t overthink it. I mean, there’s a human being in a room who’s drunk or high or whatever, and I just go, ‘Okay, what does that mean to me at this particular moment?’ I could shoot the scene the following day and it could mean something completely different. I just go with whatever comes up in me at that moment. I go, ‘That’s it. That’s what I’m feeling. I’m going to go with it.’”

When we next see Craig on screen, it will be back on mainstream territory with Rian Johnson’s third Benoit Blanc mystery, Wake Up Dead Man, the latest in what Craig had not expected would ever become a series. “None of us went into it thinking that was going to happen,” he admits. “It was a surprise to everybody involved — an incredibly pleasant surprise.” But it is one he would like to see continue. “They’re just a lot of fun. I would work with Rian forever. And the cast [in Wake Up Dead Man] is just off the charts. He’s attracted such brilliant, brilliant people.” 

Craig is also interested to see where the Bond series goes next, even though it will be as a spectator. “I’m sure once the decision is made to go ahead with it, it will be magnificent as it always is,” he says. 

In the meantime, he remains tight-lipped about upcoming projects, although after speaking to Screen International, word breaks that Craig and Guadagnino are circling Sgt. Rock for DC Studios, with a screenplay by Queer and Challengers scribe Justin Kuritzkes. Craig will evidently be thankful to work again with Guadagnino. As he says of Queer, “How lucky am I to get the opportunity to do this at this stage in my career?”

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