Not my place to represent LGBT community

Daniel Craig has said that it’s not his “place” to represent the entire LGBTQ+ community in Luca Guadagnino’s new film Queer.

Former Bond star Craig plays an American expat who becomes infatuated with a younger man, played by Love, Simon star Drew Starkey, in Queer – an adaptation of a novel written by William S Burroughs in the 50s, but not published until 1985.

Speaking to Associated Press at the New York Film Festival premiere on Sunday (6 October), Craig said that the role is “universal” and that it deals with “love, loss, the pain of love… all the things all of us have experienced in our life”.

But he went on to say of representing the LGBTQ+ community: “I’m not sure that I can take on that responsibility, I don’t think that’s my place. That’s too big a thing for anybody to take on.”

Craig’s comments come after yet another actor weighed in on the ongoing debate about whether straight actors can play gay characters.

At the weekend, gay Heartstopper star Joe Locke said it wasn’t “fair” to stop actors playing any particular role.

“I wouldn’t want to not be able to play a straight character, so I don’t think it’s fair to stop someone straight – who can do all the research – playing a gay character,” the young actor told The Guardian. “As long as you’re playing a part authentically and with the best intentions – you’re not just playing a stereotype – then go for it.”

However, Succession star Jeremy Strong has said that criticism of him playing a gay character in the upcoming Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice, is “absolutely valid”, adding that “these people, and their struggles and the experiences you’re trying to render, are not a play thing”.

While, no out gay actor has won an Academy Award for a gay role, straight actors Tom Hanks, Sean Penn and Jared Leto have all picked up Oscars.

Among his upcoming projects, Guadagnino is said to be directing a biopic of Scotty Bowers, known throughout Hollywood for procuring male prostitutes for closeted gay and bisexual film stars for decades, dating back to the 40s. A reboot of Lord of the Flies is also in the works, with a script by gay British writer Patrick Ness.

Viewers in the US will be able to watch Queer from 27 November. In the UK, Mubi has acquired the rights to stream the film.

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