Daniel Craig has formally jumped into the Oscar race.
The James Bond actor, 56, on Tuesday introduced his new movie “Queer” to the 2024 Venice Movie Pageant, and in line with The Hollywood Reporter, it acquired a 9 minute standing ovation at its premiere. Directed by Luca Guadagnino (“Name Me By Your Title”), the film takes place in Mexico Metropolis and stars Craig as American expat William Lee.
“His encounter with Eugene Allerton, a younger scholar new to the town, exhibits him, for the primary time, that it may be lastly attainable to ascertain an intimate reference to someone,” in line with the Venice synopsis. Drew Starkey stars as Eugene within the film, which is predicated on the William S. Burroughs novel.
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In line with IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio, “Queer” options the “most express homosexual intercourse scenes I can bear in mind in any mainstream film,” whereas Vulture’s Nate Jones studies they’re “notably extra express” than these in “Brokeback Mountain” and “Name Me by Your Title.”
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Throughout a press convention in Venice, the primary query pertained to what it was wish to movie the intercourse scenes. A journalist famous that they’re “like nothing we have ever seen earlier than in a mainstream film,” not simply because they’re express however due to the “happiness” on show.
“There’s nothing intimate about filming a intercourse scene on a film set,” Craig quipped. “There is a room full of individuals watching you. We simply wished to make it as touching and as actual and as pure as we probably may.”
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Craig added that his co-star, Starkey, is a “fantastic, incredible, lovely actor to work with, and we type of had amusing. We tried to make it enjoyable.” He additionally recalled rehearsing dance choreography with the actor months earlier than filming began and famous, “Dancing with somebody is a good icebreaker.”
Starkey additionally mentioned that he and Craig each felt open to “strive new issues” on the film.
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“If you’re rolling round on the ground with somebody on the second day of understanding one another, I believe that is a great way to get to know somebody,” he joked.
Guadagnino, in the meantime, recalled being moved by the “profound connection” between the 2 characters described within the e book and the “romanticism of the concept of the journey, and the journey with somebody you need and love.” “Queer” is the director’s second film of the 12 months after the tennis drama “Challengers.”
Craig has already been incomes Oscar buzz for the function, with some pundits predicting he will probably be nominated for greatest actor on the 2025 Academy Awards. He departed the function of James Bond in 2021’s “No Time to Die,” and “Queer” is his first film function since 2018 that is not a part of the James Bond or “Knives Out” franchises.
At one level throughout the Venice press convention, one journalist requested whether or not there may ever “be a homosexual James Bond,” prompting laughter and main Guadagnino to say, “Guys, let’s be adults within the room for a second.” Craig ignored this a part of the query however mentioned he took the function in “Queer” with a purpose to work with Guadagnino and since “if I wasn’t within the film and I noticed this film, I might need to be in it.”