When you’re James Bond, it’s hard to think about anything other than your muscles and who you’re killing next. Initially, this didn’t interest Daniel Craig much, as he wasn’t sure how deep he’d be able to go with a character like that.
“I would say one of my biggest reservations about playing [Bond] would be the construct of masculinity,” said Craig in a recent interview with The New Yorker. “It was often very laughable, but you can’t mock it and expect it to work. You have to buy into it.”
He added later, “It’s also not my job to judge. I mean, really, it’s kind of the worst thing you can do as an actor, to start judging the character you’re playing.”
Craig also noted that his latest role in Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ “Queer” shouldn’t be viewed as trying to push against his association with 007, but rather a natural expansion of his career and what he’s most compelled to explore as an actor.
“When I took [Bond] on, I was one person. I’m now completely a different person. I’m not doing this movie in response to that,” Craig said. “I’m not that small. But I couldn’t have done this movie when I was doing Bond. It would’ve felt kind of, ‘Why? What are you trying to prove?’”
His real draw to “Queer” and what it offered him was a chance to play a character who’s emotions were as guarded as someone like Bond, just in a completely different way.
“The vulnerability of human beings is always very interesting to me. We’re all vulnerable. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter how tough you are, everybody’s vulnerable,” said Craig. “But it’s how boys are brought up, how men are expected to behave, how someone like Burroughs was expected to behave. He’s on the hunt for lust, for love, for whatever. He wants to fuck. He wants to fall in love. He wants everything that city can give him. So he’s a kind of artificial human being walking around, maybe.”
“Queer” is now playing in theaters from A24.