This article contains minor spoilers for Queer.
Luca Guadagnino's Queer, an adaptation of the novel by William S. Burroughs, is dark, spooky, romantic, melancholy and magical all at once. Daniel Craig, with unerring commitment to a role that is so very not Bond, plays the drug-addicted American expat Lee, a spectral figure who haunts the streets of Mexico City in the ‘50s. He spends the bulk of his time getting blind drunk at the local dive bar, shooting up heroin and, in this drug-and-drink-addled haze, finding younger men to sleep with.
He graced millions of screens as hotheaded Rafe Cameron on Netflix’s outrageously popular teen drama – but landing his first major film role, as the object of Daniel Craig’s infatuation in the upcoming Luca Guadagnino film Queer, has Starkey poised to make the leap to a new tier of leading man
Then he meets Allerton, a discharged seaman who seems to descend from the heavens (he is portrayed by modern matinee idol Drew Starkey, so go figure). Lee soon fixates on him, setting in motion a strange will-they won't-they pursuit that serves as the film's loose plot before a final act that gets, well, weird. It's a performance that is terrific and heartbreaking that has won Craig acclaim from critics and has landed him at the forefront of the awards race en route to the Oscars next year.
This version of the actor, now 56, will feel strikingly different to audiences less versed with the sexy art films of his early career than they are with Bond. But Craig doesn't pick projects any differently now to how he would've all those years ago. “You go with your gut, and you hope something great will come along,” Craig tells GQ, sat in a London hotel alongside Guadagnino.
Below, Guadagnino and Craig discuss the making of Queer, Craig's post-Bond era, and Guadagnino's new adaptation of American Psycho.
GQ: Luca, is there a quality in Daniel — or a role of his — that made you want to cast him?
Luca Guadagnino: Well I've been an ardent admirer of his work ever since I saw him in Love is the Devil. I think Daniel has a very rare quality; there is an icon himself, beyond the roles he plays — and he played pretty fairly iconic roles — and he's an incredible performer. He's like Bette Davis to me, if I had to compare.
Daniel Craig: Yes!
Luca Guadagnino: That kind of impact.
Have you ever been compared to Bette Davis before, Daniel?
Craig: I couldn't be happier.
Guadagnino: Yeah, because Bette was like [a] mega icon, she played some icons, and she was the greatest actress of her generation. And also a wonderful interview. I spent time watching her being interviewed on TV, it's incredible.
Did you align on your visions for who Lee should be from the beginning?
Craig: I remember when Luca and I met, we sat down — we'd met before — but we sat down to talk about this in a hotel in New York. It wasn't a very long meeting, we just sat and had a drink, and I looked into his eyes, and I saw somebody that thought, I'll take a risk on you… The way that he talked about it is exactly what I thought. And you go, Let's do it.
And is there a pretty close collaboration when you're working on the scenes together?
Guadagnino: When you prepare a movie very in-depth, as we do… I think then that is the moment in which you basically start, and you do care, but you don't feel the pressure of control. You have made so much before that allows you to be free and released.
Craig: That's what the work is for. The work hinders you. I mean, I know this is a really bad example, but if I ever hear an actor say, “My character wouldn't do that.” I'm like, Who fucking knows?
Guadagnino: You know what's worse? When I heard some actor saying to me, “My character would not wear this colour, and that's not good on my skin.”
Does that make it more difficult for you as the director, if there's too much input?
Guadagnino: Input is wonderful, it's not the input that I'm not interested in. I'm not interested in the vanity.
Daniel, is he interested in the input?
Craig: God, yeah, definitely. But the same thing, you know vanity is… You really do have to try and leave your ego somewhere else. And I know that sounds weird, because ultimately to have the confidence to do it, you need to have—
Guadagnino: —the ego.
Craig: The ego, so you can't separate it. But if you allow the ego to be the driving force, then you're sort of fucked.
One of my favourite scenes comes right in the middle of the film, when a drunken Lee pursues Allerton to a party, confronts him in a corner, and says: “I want to talk to you, without speaking.”
Craig: It felt like I had to be the drunkest, and most out of it, I've been anywhere in the movie. Which was a thing I said to Luca very early on: “Look, I don't have any way of judging how drunk, or high, or… I'm thinking about it, but you need to watch me.” [Laughs.]
I've been that drunk, unfortunately. And I've said things I shouldn't say. What I do know is, when you're that drunk, you're trying to control the things you're saying; you're trying to make sense… I mean, he's clearly just obsessed with this human being, and wants to get to talk to [him].
Guadagnino: There is one thing to be said. Allerton goes into the far corner of the room, to see everything. I think Allerton is waiting for Lee to show up.
Craig: Maybe you're right, yeah.
Guadagnino: The way Drew plays it… It's a cat-and-mouse dynamic between the two of them. He wants that to happen.
Daniel, I wanted to ask you about your collaboration with Jonathan Anderson, who Luca has worked with on a number of films now. I think a GQ colleague described the Loewe ad you did earlier this year as announcing your “freaky era,” so tell me about that.
Craig: We were working with Jonathan on this movie, who you just can't help falling in love with; he's a brilliant human being, and an amazing artist. I think I mentioned to Luca, “Would he… would he want do anything? Can I?” Because I thought, I'd love to wear his clothes. And Luca went, “Leave it with me.”
Guadagnino: I was the go-between.
Craig: An excellent match-maker. Jonathan approached me, and I went and did a photo shoot, as simple as that; I said, “You pick the clothes, I'll wear whatever you want me to wear.” And my hair was long because I'd grown it for this. There was no, like, “What look do I want this year…” It was purely just a nice timing thing that worked.
There's this idea that the projects you've picked post-Bond — be it the Loewe ad, be it your flamboyant Belvedere ad, be it Knives Out, be it Queer — are somehow a reaction to your Bond years.
Craig: I think that's in the eye of the beholder. I mean, I don't think of that way.
But do you find it annoying that it comes up so often?
Craig: I mean, listen — no. I understand it, and totally get it, but my brain, as opposed to anyone else's brain, doesn't work in that way. I just look at it as lovely opportunities to do something that is… I'm older. I mean, it's more to do with that than it has to do with anything else. I'm just older and just, I care less.
I mean, I've had a really, really long career — a glorious, long career, which I'm still enjoying, and I'd like to go a bit longer. And all of those things play into where I am. I've been pushed into incredible situations through Bond, and just amazing experiences. But I had to learn on my feet on my way, because no one could teach me how to do it. And now I've done it, I go, “Oh, that's great.”
I can move on from those experiences now, and just sort be a little less… You are in a controlled state doing Bond, you have to be. You have to be kind of in that world. But I'm not reacting to it now.
Luca, it was reported recently that you're doing an American Psycho re-adaptation. Why do you want to make it?
Guadagnino: Any director, in this moment, they are all developing projects. Sometimes you develop with Hollywood, sometimes you have material being handed to you by a studio, by a producer. And I think all of us do make two, three, four, five, six, seven developments…
Craig: You do. I can't do that. Luca's working on so many things all at once. It's incredible what he's doing. So it's one of many things.
Guadagnino: And Bret Easton Ellis is one of the greatest American writers alive.
How do you have the capacity to do so many things at once?
Craig: God knows. I think there's two of him.
Queer is now in cinemas.
