Daniel Craig on new film Queer, taking ‘terrifying’ role; director talks casting 007 actor

James Bond actor Daniel Craig, director Luca Guadagnino and co-star Drew Starkey talk new film Queer, and expand on its story

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Daniel Craig, left, and Drew Starkey, stars of the film Queer, in Los Angeles. The James Bond actor, his co-star and director Luca Guadagnino talk about the new film. Photo: AP

Published: 6:15pm, 4 Dec 2024Updated: 11:24am, 5 Dec 2024

Daniel Craig is sitting in the restaurant of the Carlyle Hotel in New York, talking about how easy it can be to close yourself off to new experiences.

“We get older and, maybe out of fear, we want to control the way we are in our lives. And I think it’s sort of the enemy of art,” Craig says. “You have to push against it. Whether you have success or not is irrelevant, but you have to try to push against it.”

Craig has the look of someone who has freed himself of a too-snug tuxedo. Part of the tension of his tenure as James Bond was this evident wrestling with the constraints that came along with it. Any such strains, though, would seem to be out of the window.

Since exiting that role, Craig, 56, has been eager to push himself in new directions.

Daniel Craig in a scene from Queer. He plays an American expat living in 1950s Mexico City. Photo: A24 via AP

He performed Macbeth on Broadway. His drawling detective Benoit Blanc stole the show in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

And now, Craig gives arguably his most transformative performance as the writer William S. Burroughs avatar Lee in Luca Guadagnino’s tender tale of love and longing in post-war Mexico City, Queer.