Daniel Craig’s new film seems him take the role of gay William Lee in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, based on a semi-autobiographical novella by William S Burroughs, but the former James Bond star has shared he would never have considered taking the role during his time at the helm of the 007 franchise.
“I couldn’t have done this while doing Bond. It would look reactionary, like I was showing my range,” and he said he wasn’t interested in the prospect of taking fans of Bond through to a different depiction of masculinity:
“It’s just not a conversation I wanted. I had it all the way through Bond anyway. Could there be this Bond? That Bond? So anything that is going to inflame that conversation? No — life’s too short.”
Craig says it used to take him half a year to recover from each time he played James Bond.
The British actor, who played the British spy in five films concluding with No Time to Die in 2021, told The Times:
“Early on with Bond I thought I had to do other work, but I didn’t. I was becoming a star, whatever that means, and people wanted me in their films. Incredible…
“I was so exhausted at the end of a Bond it would take me six months to recover emotionally. I always had the attitude that life must come first and, when work came first for a while, it strung me out.”
