Daniel Craig’s new film sees him sneaking around an exotic setting, wearing a white suit, drinking too much, and generally doing his best to sleep with the sexiest visitors. But that’s where the similarities to Craig’s most famous role end. The film is “Queer,” Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novella of the same name. Craig plays the Burroughs avatar, an American writer named Lee, as he searches for much younger men in post-war Mexico City. (The film was shot in Italy, on sets that create an atmosphere that’s alternately seedy and beautiful.)

Craig has starred in the past five James Bond films, including, most recently, ‘No Time to Die’, in 2021. In the years since, he has taken on a variety of roles that seem to mark a conscious break with his Bondian image, or he’s now running around as a tweedy detective with a Southern accent in Rian Johnson’s hit Netflix film series ‘Knives Out’, or playing Macbeth on Broadway. But his character in “Queer” is a particularly sharp departure. The book, a 1985 sequel to Burroughs’ Junkie, is about Lee’s romance with a young American, played in the film by Drew Starkey. The film’s sex scenes are about as explicit as those of a major male star on screen with a male co-star.

Craig, now fifty-six, lives with his wife, actress Rachel Weisz, and their young daughter. Both native Brits recently moved back to London after years in New York. Craig is known as a candid interview subject and once said he would rather ‘slit his wrists’ than play 007 again. (He still made a Bond film, after all.) More recently, he has said he doesn’t care who succeeds him in the franchise, though at other times he has seemed genuinely emotional about leaving the character behind. He even caused a bit of a stir for telling it Variety this month that Netflix should do an extended big-screen release for the upcoming “Knives Out” mystery, scheduled for next fall.

Craig and I recently met at Chateau Marmont, in West Hollywood. He came dressed informally in baggy light brown trousers and a brown jacket. His hair was a bit shaggy and he was unshaven. (Some of his very un-Bondian fashion choices, including in a recent ad campaign for the luxury designer Loewe, have been the subject of amused headlines in recent years.) We sat in the hotel lobby and enjoyed a late lunch. Craig is very informal in person – he seems to really enjoy swearing – but he was focused and attentive, never looking at his phone or paying attention to two young women who sat close to us and occasionally giggled as they tried to get off to listen.

In our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed his experiences making “Queer,” what he wanted to convey with the film’s sex scenes, and his complicated relationship with James Bond.

How did this project come to you? Did Luca approach you?

Yes, Luca came to me. I met him twenty years ago in Rome. I went to some crazy actors’ party overlooking the Colosseum. He came and said hello. And I didn’t really know who he was, but he talked a little bit about himself and we came up with some vague ideas. ‘It’ll be great. We should work together one day.” Like you.

You all do that.

I mean, that’s what you do, right? You say: Yes, of course, what a great idea. But actually it wasn’t too bad. And I’ve just watched his stuff over the years and thought how great he is and how he pushes things.

Have you read Burroughs yet?

I had read ‘Junkie’. Here it is a little different. I think if you go to any kind of college or whatever, college education, at some point you’ll come across Burroughs. It’s a kind of rite of passage. I don’t feel like it’s like that in England. But I reread “Junkie” and I read “Queer,” which is about ten minutes long. It was a very easy decision.

Have you studied Burroughs’ life? It’s pretty crazy.

It’s a crazy life. I mean, I went the biography route and did it because I think that’s what you should do. And they are quite fascinating. He was what we call in England a trust fund kid.

That’s what we say here too.

Do you? Right. Okay, so he was some kind of trust fund kid. I mean, he wasn’t a very rich guy from a trust fund, but he had an income that’s interesting to me in a lot of ways because it creates a certain type of person.

Say more.

In a way, it can take you both ways. You can become a completely redundant person, or you can more or less take advantage of it and try to expand yourself. And it seems to me that he just had a thirst for knowledge. He had very strange jobs. And then went to college, and then was in Austria, and then really traveled and did a lot of things, and then got into drugs and wanted to expand his mind that way. And as for his sexuality, I have no say in that, but it seems to me that sex and sexuality are not necessarily compatible. I mean, it depends.

I don’t know what you mean.

Well, in the sense that he got married. It was probably more likely that he felt he should get married. I have no idea, but he was probably gay. And what that meant in the 1950s: it was illegal. It was downright illegal, but so was being a junkie. So he was an outsider in every respect.

What attracted you to playing him?

I recognized him.

From people you knew?

Yes. There’s all this footage of him talking on TV shows or whatever, and there’s a voice he puts on that’s more “masculine.” And that felt like some kind of act, like he was putting that on to say, this is William Burroughs. This is who I am, a very serious literary person. And then there would be bits of footage where I could tell he was really overwhelmed, maybe high, maybe whatever. I’m terrible at imitating people, so that wasn’t going to happen. I just wanted to find someone I could tune in to. And I felt like I could tune into him because he was someone who was looking for love.

It felt like you were trying to play a character who performed a certain way and wasn’t quite comfortable in his own skin.

Certainly. And I’m fascinated by the concept of masculinity, and how artificial it is and how constructed it is.

Do you think you’re interested in that because you’ve always been interested in it, or because you once played the most famous icon of masculinity?

No, I’ve always been interested in it. I would say one of my biggest reservations about playing (Bond) would be the construction of masculinity. It was often very laughable, but you can’t mock it and expect it to work. You have to believe in it.