During his James Bond days, Daniel Craig was one of the most lusted-after actors in the world, but the actor has revealed that he thinks some of his famous sex scenes have been “terrible”.
“I’ve shot some terrible f—ing love scenes in my career,” the actor, 56, said while promoting his new movie, Queer. “They’re out there to see.”
Craig has got hot and heavy with quite a few beautiful leading ladies over the course of his long acting career — including his real life wife, Rachel Weisz, 54. The couple met while shooting the 2011 movie Dream House, but seemingly got over any on-set awkward moments to fall in love IRL.
Craig has also simulated sex on camera with Sienna Miller, in 2004’s Layer Cake, plus Bond girls Eva Green, Halle Berry, Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux.
In Queer, though, Craig’s on-screen lover is another man, played by Drew Starkey. The movie, based on a novel by William S.Burroughs, has been tipped to pick up Oscar nominations next year, with Craig playing American expat and war veteran William Lee, who falls for a younger man, discharged soldier and drug addict Eugene Allerton (Starkey).
This time around, Craig is proud of his sex scenes, because he thinks they’re more realistic than in some of his previous roles. “Sex is wonderful and messy and complicated, and hopefully we’ve managed to stick that on the screen, because that’s what happens in the bedroom,” he says. “We’ve gone for that sort of vulnerability . . . and keeping it as real as it possibly can be.”
It sounds like it’s paid off, with Venice Film Festival’s Artistic Director Alberto Barbera describing Queer as Craig’s “performance of a lifetime”.
Since he downed his last Martini as James Bond in 2021’s No Time To Die (his sixth turn as the international secret agent, making him the longest-serving Bond to date), Craig has taken on a number of varied and interesting projects, including his iconic performance as detective Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out series.
“I don’t have a game plan,” he says. “You’ve got to go where your heart goes and let that lead. I’m very privileged to be in a position not to have to work as much as I used to, but if I do the job, I want it to be like this. I want it to be the best thing I can do.”
Leaving Bond behind has also allowed the actor to experiment with his personal style, with him rocking some seriously experimental looks in recent years, most recently showing off his new floppy hair on the red carpet in Venice.