‘Scripts like this don’t come along very often’ – Luca Guadagnino and Daniel Craig on Queer

Daniel Craig says he would jump at the chance to work with Luca Guadagnino again.

The English actor closed the book on his chapter of playing James Bond in 2021 and has since been quite selective in his artistic choices.

In Queer, he plays William Lee, a fictional character based on the real life of his author William S Burroughs.

Inspired by the 1985 novella of the same name, it follows Lee who is on the pursuit for love in 1950s Mexico City.

The Skyfall actor tells Sky News he had no doubts about taking on the role with Luca Guadagnino at the helm.

“My career has been quite long and varied, and I’ve done all sorts of things and to expect a script like this to come along at this stage in my life is just a little bit too much [to ask] really,” Craig says.

“I guess I have to be specific about [choosing roles in the future] because scripts like this just don’t come along very often.”

He adds: “My expectations are quite low now because I can only work with him to get better.” Turning to Guadagnino he says, “I mean, you know, if you ask me to do something, I’ll do it.”

Guadagnino’s cinematic bucket list

It has been a busy year for Guadagnino. In April, he released the tennis drama Challengers starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.

Tipped for awards success over the coming months, the intense sports romance has been shortlisted for best original score and original song with nominations being revealed for the 97th Academy Awards on 17 January.

Queer takes a slower pace. Almost entirely shot on a soundstage, Guadagnino sees the film as a “box ticked” in his journey as a filmmaker.

“I’m proud of the idea of the outcome of this. We could play with the tools of cinema fully,” he says.

“When I got the book when I was like 17, 18, I also wrote a draft of the script, and I remember that I put a note to myself that it had to be shot entirely on stage because I immediately realised that Burroughs is a great writer of imagination and his own imagination.

“So I never thought even remotely that by approaching the mise en scene of a Burroughs book, you could do a realistic movie.”

Referring to choosing a straight actor to play a gay man, he says “the depth that Daniel Craig brings is profound”.

“It’s quite insulting, as a homosexual man myself, to consider the possibility that casting a homosexual man to play the role of Lee would make it more real, as if one person is defined entirely by their gender identity or their sexuality.”

Film banned in Turkey

The film itself garnered publicity in November after Turkish authorities banned the film from being shown at Mubi Film Festival hours before the event was due to begin.

Standing by the project and its team, Mubi made the decision to cancel their entire festival in Istanbul, telling Sky News they believed the ban was a “direct restriction on art and freedom of expression”.

Reflecting on the moment, Craig says it inadvertently “gave us lots of free advertising” but it was a pity for the “other filmmakers who were going to show their movies” there.

Meanwhile, Guadagnino still questions the reason behind the strong reaction to the film.

“I am still wondering whether they had seen the movie and decided to censor it or not,” he says.

The festival instead moves to Milan, but the pair hope Turkish audiences will download the film and make their own decisions.

Originally meaning strange or peculiar, the connotations of the word queer have changed in the 40 years between the novella being written and Guadagnino bringing the feature to the screen.

Craig says he doesn’t believe the word queer has “got anything to do with sex, it’s a state of mind, it’s a feeling”.

“Queer can mean so many things. I mean, in Italian, the book was called Diverso which is different.”

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He adds: “I don’t know if it’s been reclaimed, I can’t speak to that but it’s a beautiful word and it’s all the connotations that go along with it are sort of deeply personal to a lot of people.

“It’s been used as a slant, as a derogatory word. Language is always to be reclaimed, and it goes in cycles and every 10 years it’s reclaimed again.

“So I’m sure in 10 years’ time it’ll mean something else.”