\tThe director Luca Guadagnino has an eye for leading men. This past year, Guadagnino put Josh O\u2019Connor through a complicated game of sex, betrayal and tennis in \u201cChallengers,\u201d written by Justin Kuritzkes. And the director took Daniel Craig on a journey through the emotional depths of \u201cQueer,\u201d based on William Burroughs\u2019 short novel. O\u2019Connor and Craig, both known for playing iconic Brits \u2014 the first as Prince Charles in \u201cThe Crown,\u201d the other in the five most recent James Bond movies \u2014 spent this past summer working on the next installment in Netflix\u2019s \u201cKnives Out\u201d franchise, \u201cWake Up Dead Man,\u201d which will stream on the platform next year.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t \t\t\t \tDANIEL CRAIG: Where did you first meet Luca Guadagnino? \t<\/p>\n
\tJOSH O\u2019CONNOR: I met him at his favorite hotel in London. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Claridge\u2019s? <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: Claridge\u2019s. I got a text from our friend Jonathan Anderson saying, \u201cDo you want to come for lunch? I\u2019m with Luca Guadagnino.\u201d I was out and about in London, and I cycled to Claridge\u2019s \u2014 I don\u2019t know what went on in my head, but I forgot that I was meeting with Jonathan Anderson and Luca Guadagnino. <\/p>\n
\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexi Lubomirski for Variety \t\t \t \t\t\t \tCRAIG: That\u2019s not like you. You\u2019re normally so together. I met him at a party \u2014 incredibly briefly, easily 10 years ago, if not more than that \u2014 in Rome, in one of those apartments that overlooks the Colosseum. Luca introduced himself, and I pretended to know who he was. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: Was \u201cQueer\u201d the first discussion about working together? <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Yes, it was. My agent, Bryan Lourd, had been talking with Luca about this. Luca says that he didn\u2019t think I would do it. Little did he know: I think I might just have said yes to anything. So you met him at Claridge\u2019s. You kept in touch. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: Yeah. The \u201cChallengers\u201d thing was quite weird, because I was living in New York with no friends. I\u2019ve spoken to you about this before. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: You\u2019ve droned on about it. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: If only I\u2019d known you then. You\u2019d have hated it. But then my agent set me up on a friend date with Justin. At that point, Justin was writing his plays. He had a YouTube channel. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: What\u2019s it called? <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: I can\u2019t remember. I\u2019ll find it for you. It\u2019s mad. \t<\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Justin\u2019s Japes. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: We can spitball a few more off-camera. But he\u2019d written this feature film script, and he sent it to me. I read it, and he said, \u201cWhich of the characters do you like?\u201d At this point Luca wasn\u2019t involved. I said neither. They\u2019re both brilliant tennis players \u2014 I just didn\u2019t see myself in either of them. But I said it\u2019s brilliant and good luck to them. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: What about the tennis stuff? You thought that\u2019d be easy?<\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: You\u2019ll know this because we\u2019re both British actors who trained in drama school. And when you do drama school, you know that thing where you say \u2026 <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: \u2026 I can do anything. Speak French and horse ride. <\/p>\n
\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexi Lubomirski for Variety \t\t \t \t\t\t \tO\u2019CONNOR: Anything. I once had an audition for a play, and I needed to know how to play an instrument. I tried to learn the harmonica in a day. I didn\u2019t get the part, obviously. So tennis? I was like, yeah, no problem. But at that point, I\u2019d never worked with a trainer or been in a gym for very long for my entire life. Every day, we were doing two, three hours of training and two, three hours of tennis. And I was wrecked. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Did you kind of enjoy it? <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: I loved it. I had the time of my life and didn\u2019t keep it up. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: When I first started doing the Bonds \u2026 Listen, I used to go to the gym a lot. But in my 30s, I abused my body more than I probably should have done. All of a sudden, I get this part [in \u201cCasino Royale\u201d], and I\u2019m like, oh, I\u2019ve really got to get fit for this. I did the whole thing. But at the end of the movie, I\u2019d been doing it for so long that I stopped. And then another Bond movie comes up, and you go, oh, I\u2019ve got to get fit again. That cycle, I had to break. I just started keeping fit regularly, so I didn\u2019t stop for long periods of time. It\u2019s really fucking boring talking about working out. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: I told you when I saw it: I thought \u201cQueer\u201d was a total masterpiece. It feels so different to the work you\u2019ve done recently. Was that a conscious decision? <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: I don\u2019t think it was conscious. You\u2019ve worked with Luca: There\u2019s an atmosphere he creates on a set, which is one of brilliant chaos, but also absolute focus. It\u2019s Italian. It\u2019s Sicilian. Which, for a tight-arsed Englishman, is very liberating. It doesn\u2019t mean that he\u2019s not absolutely laser-focused on everything. And the character just felt so multifaceted, multilayered. He\u2019s got a gun on his hip and walks around a macho guy, but he\u2019s Burroughs. I threw the kitchen sink at it. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: He feels deeply insecure, and yet the way he walks around is completely confident. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: But that makes so much sense to me. That\u2019s the artifice of masculinity. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: The cool thing about Luca is, he\u2019s not afraid to take some source material and stretch it out and make it into something through his eyes. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Obviously, I love the end of [\u201cChallengers\u201d]. I love where it goes to: All of that setup, and you get to the moment. Which is what Luca\u2019s about \u2014 he wants to hit the moment of love. And you see a love between the two guys that trumps everything around it. I\u2019m just a sucker for it. What else is there? \t<\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: I think that\u2019s what was going on in this film: Yes, there\u2019s the tennis backdrop, but the desire these three people had for each other that\u2019s torn apart \u2026 and there\u2019s an invisible magnet that\u2019s dragging them back together. That was definitely a Luca component that was bubbling underneath. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: The scene in the hotel room, where they don\u2019t have sex with each other, is the biggest cock tease in movie history. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: The reality is that those intimacy scenes are the least sexy scenes you can do. I feel far more vulnerable doing an emotional scene. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: The sex is the least interesting thing in the scene. You have to play the truth of it the best you can. The only thing that\u2019s going on is in the heads of these people; if you can\u2019t see that, then the scene is just gratuitous. What are they doing there? What\u2019s affecting them? All of these things. You owe it to a sex scene to have all those things in. Otherwise, it\u2019s an excuse to get people naked. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: The reason they\u2019re there is to serve the story. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Did you laugh? <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: Me and Mike [Faist] got the giggles because we\u2019re both kissing Zendaya, and gradually we end up kissing each other. She\u2019s just backed out and she\u2019s watching. We had this moment of kissing for a while, and then opening our eyes and seeing that it\u2019s just us \u2014 that did make us giggle. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: This summer we did \u201cWake Up Dead Man.\u201d <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: I\u2019ve never experienced anything like it on a film set. We were all in each other\u2019s pockets for three months. Particularly you and me. Most of the time you and me. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: Like it or not. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: The trailers! That\u2019s the best trailer I\u2019ve ever had in my life. It\u2019s better than my flat in London. And I spent a lot of time knocking on your door. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: \u201cDon\u2019t say anything. It\u2019s Josh. Just hide behind the sofa.\u201d <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: One other question I wanted to ask is about those movies and how they\u2019re seen. Because they\u2019ve been so successful in theaters. Does that bother you? <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: The first one was such a surprise, and it was a fully released film. It made lots of money and things. And, listen, I\u2019m not knocking where it\u2019s gone to and where it is. But it saddens me that there isn\u2019t more of a theatrical moment for these movies. These movies seem to have a cross-generational appeal. And the idea that families go and see that movie just fills me with massive joy. It\u2019s not just a niche movie we\u2019re doing here \u2014 it\u2019s for everybody. And the fact is, to have a collective experience in the cinema, blah, blah, blah. I know everybody says this, but it\u2019s the truth. <\/p>\n
\tO\u2019CONNOR: It is. <\/p>\n
\tCRAIG: I\u2019m glad people see it in their homes. I\u2019m glad people watch it together in their homes and have fun doing it. That\u2019s absolutely great. But there\u2019s nothing quite like going to the cinema. Laughing in a cinema is the best thing in the world. \t<\/p>\n
\t \t\tProduction: Emily Ullrich; Lighting Director: Max Bernetz; Set Direction: Gille Mills\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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