Daniel Craig - Queer (2024) press conference at Venice Film Festival (with Drew Starkey)

Daniel Craig uh Jonathan Anderson Daniel and Drew I think there was a part of the question was for for you to what was the question again the question was was was the is about the the uh the erotic scene and the intimacy how did you reach this level of of of intimacy I we the there's some choreography in the movie which is very important part of the movie um Drew and I started rehearsals on that months before we started um filming um which is a dancing with someone is a great Icebreaker um so um and we approached the the scenes you know 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 so it's like it's not we just wanted to make it as touching and as real and as you know as natural as we possibly could and and I just you know TR is a wonderful fantastic beautiful actor to work with and we just we kind of had a laugh you know we tried to make it fun yeah which is such a singular experience as an actor you know I've never had an experience like this to to Really dive into one moment in a story and explore every Avenue possible um so yeah but but collaborating with I mean I'm I'm not a dancer uh Daniel's definitely not a dancer um but I think we learned I think I think we got better together so the limits yes limits Daniel do you want to add something to um to the question yeah I mean it's the the whole you know the the trip at the end the third the third act it's you know it's so important to the film it doesn't happen in the book it's something that Luca decided to put in because because we needed it we needed we needed to see them connect we were talking collaborate together and suddenly you find you've created this um character hello Helen Bal from Australia hi um I don't think we've had the obvious question um why did you cast Daniel Craig who was once James Bond and why um did you have any second thoughts about it Daniel about playing this role given that you are quite a superstar and um well whatever um and do you think do you think there could be a um a gay James Bond I mean guys please let's be adult in the room for a second there is no way around the fact that nobody would ever know James Bond desires period having said that [Applause] now the important thing is that he does his missions properly having said that darling I adore you I have been a an admirer of this gentleman for a long time despite he looks and he is pristine and I had this intuition that I suffocated within me because you know like I'm pragmatic like you have to make movies you cannot Daydream a gentleman that is in the room was really the one that was not pragmatic and said to me what about Daniel Craig and I said I thought about him but he's never going to say yes and he said to me let's ask and he said yes and the yes was a definitive yes he's one of the greatest actors it's a privilege to work with someone like them like him and and for me 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 um being very mortal on screen and very few are and very few iconic legendary actor allow that fragility to be seen and that's one of them is Daniel for sure Daniel okay no I I just want I just want to follow up on on on Lucas because beside the Allure of working with him and all these other wonderful talented people what is about Lee that you were interested into into exploring well first off the reason I did the movie is because of this great man here I mean it's like I mean it was when i' wanted to work with him for a long time we met 20 years ago and said maybe we should work together and we finally did which is just a a wonderful thing um I I 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 does that Mak sense um it's just I it's the kind of films I I want to see I want to make I want to be out there I they're challenging but they're I hopefully incredibly accessible because they're movies I mean they movies as I understand them um so so so the challenge of playing Lee was just talking and just we just we just talked and you know all of us one of one one of Luca's incredible talents is is he just wants to hear everybody's opinion I mean he has a very strong opinion don't get me wrong but but um but he wants to hear everybody's opinion because it's it's really important to him to hear other people's voices about what it is and it's it's so it's so freeing because you're not kind of like on track you're just like okay maybe this maybe this maybe this so that I I I don't look back as a challenge just as a joy yeah I want to add something a very queer thing to do one yeah for example for Mr Craig um maybe not everybody will get this but I saw traces of Jordy peacock and Lee which I thought was very strange also but just in terms of how you Center these characters like what did you see in them that was appealing to you and that you wanted to put out there especially relative to Mr Burrow's life which was deeply tragic and deeply complicated thank you um there's a the research that I did I watched a lot of um William burrow being interviewed and he had this Persona I could only describe it as a Persona very kind of deep and you know measured and I thought that can't be him if it is it's only it's a part of him it's something maybe a defense maybe it's something and I think that when I thought about that and I read qu and I read I and we talked I thought we've got to try and find the other person there's very little knowledge of that there's very little kind of talk of it and I that really was the the thing that I kind of wanted to try and key into who was who was because having red junkie which is sort of very dry and just of like kind of this is this and this is this queer is this emotional just thump in about you know like it's a tiny book but it's just like an emotional and it is 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 I mean if I was writing myself apart and try to take off things that I wanted to do this would fulfill all of them taking us in an internal process through this couple it is this is love it's a couple is is only love and through love bringing the characters to that trip around so America in Mexico but it's an internal trip an internal trip maybe to try to find himself do you think it could be possible that the public or the people projecting themselves and say that internal trip not lying to ourselves not cheating to ourselves do you think that could be part of the public when when we see it because that's that was at least what I what I thought that and to Daniel how did you feel that sadness it was a role but you project that sadness in that trip how did you feel uh through this character because it touched really thank you um I don't know if there's any one thing I did I just felt like um I all you can do is you can just absorb everything you can and then on the day a great director you you figure it out and it's so if you saw it that's wonderful um thank you I mean it's like and you know I there was no hopefully there's no effort to do it it's just it was happening and that's what that's what hopefully you saw I'm really sorry they just came to tell me we run way out of time so thank you everyone