Daniel Craig had huge reservations about his role as James Bond due to the “construction of masculinity.”
Actor Daniel Craig says his biggest reservation about playing James Bond was “the construction of masculinity.” She was even one of his “biggest reservations” about playing the MI6 secret agent in five films in the franchise, he told The New Yorker during a recent Q&A. organized to promote the film “Queer” by Luca Guadagnino.
About the character of 007 that he played in “Casino Royale” in 2006, “Quantum of Solace” in 2008, “Skyfall” in 2012, “Spectre” in 2015 and “No Time to Die” in 2021, he said: “It was often very laughable, but you can't make fun of it and expect it to work. You have to believe in it.”
Specifying that “it’s “not his job to judge”, because “it’s the worst thing you can do as an actor, to start judging the character you play”, he confided that he was much more interested in his most recent characters like “Queer”.
“What matters is how boys are raised”
“I mean, the vulnerability of human beings always interests me,” he continued, connecting the “artificial” concept of masculinity to the avatar of the writer William S. Burroughs that he plays in “ Queer.” “We are all vulnerable. It doesn't matter who you are. No matter how tough you are, everyone is vulnerable. But what matters is the way boys are raised, the way men are supposed to behave, the way someone like Burroughs was supposed to behave.”
He added: “[James Bond] represents almost twenty years of my life. When I accepted it, I was a person. I am now a completely different person. I'm not making this film in response to that. I'm not that small. But I couldn't have made this film when I was doing Bond. I would have said to myself: 'Why? What are you trying to prove?'
The action of the film “Queer”, which was released in the United States on November 27 and does not yet have a date in France, takes place in the 1950s in Mexico and is based on the short story of the same name by Burroughs. The film follows Lee (Craig), an American expatriate who leads a solitary life in his forties in a small working-class university community until the arrival of Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a young student, whom he will have to woo.
