Daniel Craig swerves question about gay James Bond – Luca Guadagnino wades in
The question came during a press conference for Craig's LGBTQ+ drama Queer.
Daniel Craig declined to comment on the possibility of a gay James Bond, after being asked about the topic at a press conference promoting his latest film.
The former 007 actor has teamed up with acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino, best known for Challengers and Call Me by Your Name, for an intimate LGBTQ+ drama titled Queer.
Based on the novel by William S Burroughs, the film is set in the 1940s and follows William Lee (Craig), who experiences an intense attraction to American veteran Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) while exiled to Mexico City.
Craig's openness to LGBTQ+ roles – his Knives Out character Benoit Blanc is also gay – inspired one journalist to ask whether his most famous character could also be depicted as queer in the future.
In a video shared online (via TMZ), Craig shakes his head, laughs and can be heard quietly saying, "I mean... please."
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It's open to speculation why he chose not to answer - it's possible that he simply wants to leave the Bond character behind and is attempting to keep the focus firmly on his latest project.
Whatever the case, director Guadagnino steps in to deliver a response on his behalf, alluding to the fact that we can't know for sure whether the spy hasn't always been LGBTQ+ on some level.
"Guys, let’s be an adult in the room for a second," he explained. "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."
Notably, Craig's incarnation of Bond was implied to have had same-sex experiences in 2012's Skyfall, during an intense exchange with Javier Bardem's villain Raoul Silva.
The actor has also opened up about filming gay sex scenes for Queer with co-star Starkey, telling press (via Variety): "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! We just wanted to make it as touching and as real and as natural as we possibly could.
"Drew is a wonderful, fantastic, beautiful actor to work with, and we kind of had a laugh. We tried to make it fun."
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