Daniel Craig's latest film, Queer, with director Luca Guadagnino, has become quite a talking point among film buffs and critics. The James Bond actor, who bade farewell to the iconic spy with the last 007 adventure, No Time to Die, told Sunday Times that the thought of playing a gay man during his James Bond stint wouldn't have crossed his mind, reflecting that making such a choice would've been "reactionary".
Queer, which is Luca Guadagnino's follow-up to last year's critically acclaimed box office hit, Challengers, is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' semi-autobiographical novella of the same name from 1985. Craig plays an American William Lee, who takes a fancy to a US Navy officer Eugene Allerton, played by Drew Starkey.
Explaining his choice, Craig said that his total commitment to the James Bond films didn't allow him an opportunity to explore other projects, and it eventually took a toll on him. “Early on with Bond I thought I had to do other work, but I didn’t. I was becoming a star, whatever that means, and people wanted me in their films. Incredible. Most actors are out of work for large chunks so you take your job offers — but they left me empty. Then, bottom line, I got paid. I was so exhausted at the end of a Bond that it would take me six months to recover emotionally. I always had the attitude that life must come first and, when work came first for a while, it strung me out.”
Craig made his outstanding James Bond debut in 2006's Casino Royale, directed by Martin Campbell, amid much skepticism directed at the makers' choice of casting him. He stepped down from the role in 2021's No Time to Die, in which his iteration of Bond gets an emotional exit.
In the same interview, Craig also shared that he wasn't too keen on making some statement on masculinity by playing a gay man while working in the James Bond films. “It’s just not a conversation I wanted. I had it all the way through Bond anyway,” he explained. “Could there be this Bond? That Bond? So, anything that is going to inflame that conversation? No — life’s too short.”
Interestingly, Craig's character in the Knives Out films has been revealed to be gay, by writer-director Rian Johnson. The actor is returning as the extraordinarily astute detective Benoit Blanc in the third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, slated for a Netflix premiere in 2025.
