Daniel Craig On Intimacy, Fulfillment & Accessibility Of Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Queer’ – Venice Film Festival
Daniel Craig splashed down on the Lido today for the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer which will screen in competition this evening. Before walking the red carpet, star and filmmaker were part of a 10-strong delegation speaking with the Venice Film Festival press corps about the adaptation of the eponymous William S Burroughs novel.
Craig plays William Lee, an American ex-pat in his late forties who leads a solitary life amidst a small working-class and collegiate community in 1950s Mexico City. However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a young student, stirs Lee into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.
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One of the first questions raised was about filming scenes of intimacy between Craig and Starkey’s characters.
Responded Craig, “You know as well as I do, there’s nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set. There’s a room full of people watching you.” However, he added, “We just wanted to make it as touching and as real and as natural as we possibly could… Drew’s a wonderful, fantastic, beautiful actor to work with, and we just, we kind of had a laugh. We tried to make it fun.”
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Added Starkey, “We jumped into movement rehearsals pretty early on, and I think not just in the intimate scenes, but throughout the course of the movie, that really freed us up and freed what was happening in the air, and it freed our bodies up, and we felt open to try new things… Luca also allows that space, he invites it, he welcomes it… I’ve never had an experience like this, to really dive into one moment in a story and explore every avenue possible. I mean, I’m not a dancer. Daniel’s definitely not a dancer. But I think we learned. I think we got better together.”
At one point, Craig was also asked if he thought there could ever be a gay James Bond. To applause, Guadagnino admonished, “Guys, let’s be an adult in the room for a second.” He continued, “There is no way around the fact that nobody would ever know James Bond’s desires period… The important thing is that he does his missions properly.” That spurred laughter and more applause.
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Call Me By Your Name filmmaker Guadagnino explained he had read Burroughs’ book when he was a “lonely” 17-year-old in Palermo who was “dreaming of building worlds through cinema.” He “fell” into Burroughs’ vivid imagination and “the profound connection that he was achingly describing on the page between these two characters… particularly Lee… the romanticism of the idea of the adventure and the adventure with someone you want and love.” It all, “transformed me and changed me forever,” he said.
Craig explained that part of his research was watching Burroughs being interviewed. “He had this persona — I could only describe it as a persona, very kind of deep, measured — and I thought that can’t be him, or it’s only a part of him. It’s something that may be a defense, and when I thought about that, and I read Queer and we talked, I thought, we’ve got to try and find the other person… That really was the thing that I wanted to try and key into.”
Queer, he noted, “is a tiny book,” but it’s got “an emotional thump. It is about love, but it’s about loss, it’s about loneliness, it’s about yearning, it’s about all of these things. And I mean, God, if I was writing myself a part and trying to tick off things that I wanted to do, this would fulfill all of them.”
Seeing the end result, Craig said, “I kind of look at this movie and I think if I wasn’t in the movie, and I saw this movie, I’d want to be in it. It’s the kind of films I want to see, I want to make, I want to be out there. They’re challenging, but hopefully incredibly accessible.”
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Guadagnino praised Craig, saying, “One of the great characteristics of the great actors that you love, that you want to see on screen and you are affected by, I would say, is the generosity of approach, the capacity of being very mortal on screen… Daniel is one of them.”
Of the movie overall, Guadagnino said he hopes that audiences walk away thinking, “Who are we when we are alone, and who are we looking for? Who do we want beside us, no matter who you are?”
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Guadagnino, whose Challengers opted out of Venice’s opening night slot amid the actors strike last year, returns to the Lido after debuting such titles here as A Bigger Splash, Suspiria and Bones and All.
Queer was filmed at Rome’s legendary Cinecitta studio. Also starring are Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Andra Ursuta, Michael Borremans and David Lowery. Guadagnino’s Challengers scribe Justin Kuritzkes wrote the script.
As Venice kicked off last week, Deadline reported that A24 has taken U.S. rights to Queer which will have its North American debut at TIFF and then screen as a Spotlight Gala at the New York Film Festival.
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