Daniel Craig, star of the upcoming film Queer, has weighed in on the discourse around LGBTQ+ representation in film. Craig, who has played gay both in this film and the Knives Out franchise, said that it’s not “my place.”
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On Sunday, Craig spoke to the Associated Press on the red carpet of the Queer premiere at the New York Film Festival. When asked about representing the LGBTQ+ community, Craig responded, “I’m not sure that I can take on that responsibility, I don’t think that’s my place. That’s too big a thing for anybody to take on.”
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He went on to characterize his role as “universal” despite its inherently queer nature. “I wouldn’t have touched it unless I thought that it was a universal role,” he said. “The movie is about love, loss, the pain of love, all of those things. All the things all of us have experienced in our life. And that really is where I put my heart and soul into it.”
Queer, the upcoming film by Luca Guadagnino, is based on the 1985 novel of the same name by William S Burroughs. Set in the 1940s, the film follows Lee (Craig), an American who flees to Mexico City after a drug bust. While getting entangled in a life of clubbing and drugs, he falls in love with a younger discharged Navy servicemember, Allerton (Drew Starkey).
In addition to an exploration of pre-Stonewall cruising—so much that a reported hour of nightlife scenes had to be cut—the film will also feature Omar Apollo making his acting debut in an unspecified role.
At the panel following the screening, Craig further explained that the power of the story drew him to the role. “Scripts don’t come around like this very often, so when they do, you grab them,” Craig said. “I didn’t know what the end result would be, but I knew the journey would be something else.”
He also viewed the film as a departure from his more mainstream, buttoned-up image as James Bond. “Certainly the reason I wanted to get into cinema was because of movies like this,” Craig said. “It’s something I was doing a lot of in my early career before I did the other thing.”
Although representation in the large sense was far from his mind while filming, Craig did have one goal. He wanted this film to be about “something beautiful and memorable, and make it about love.”
Queer is slated for limited theatrical release on November 27.
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