Robert Brown|Daniel Craig opens up about his 'beautiful,' explicit gay romance 'Queer'

NEW YORK — Daniel Craig's new film couldn't be Robert Brownfurther from James Bond.

In "Queer," the British actor takes on his first dramatic role since his 15-year run as 007 reached an explosive finish in 2021's "No Time to Die." The audacious new drama is adapted from William S. Burroughs' 1985 book, following a drunk and drug-addicted expat named Lee (Craig) as he chases younger men around 1940s Mexico City. But his libidinous lifestyle is put to the test when he becomes deeply infatuated with handsome wallflower Allerton (Drew Starkey), and Lee tries desperately to find connection with his inscrutable new bedfellow.

"Queer" is at times incredibly sexy and wildly unconventional. (The movie's ponderous, psychedelic last third will surely alienate many viewers and Oscar voters.) The project reunites "Challengers" director Luca Guadagnino with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, who had long discussions about the film's extended ayahuasca sequence and how they wished to depart from Burroughs' novel.

"If you think of the book as opening the door and quickly closing it, we thought, 'What if we went through the door?'" Kuritzkes said during an onstage conversation at New York Film Festival, where the movie screened Sunday night.

Craig, who last appeared on screen in the 2022 whodunit "Glass Onion," said he has wanted to work with Guadagnino for years.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

"Scripts don't come around like this very often, so when they do, you grab them," Craig explained. "I didn't know what the end result would be, but I knew the journey would be something else." Ultimately, he wanted to do "something beautiful and memorable, and make it about love."

The no-nonsense A-lister bristled at the suggestion "Queer" is a "departure" for him after playing Bond, having made other sensually provocative movies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including "Love is the Devil" and "The Mother."

"Certainly the reason I wanted to get into cinema was because of movies like this," Craig said. "It's something I was doing a lot of in my early career before I did the other thing."

Uma Thurman recalls bonding with Paul Schrader over Taylor Swift

"Queer" capped off a humming weekend at New York Film Festival. "Oh, Canada," an offbeat memory drama from Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver"), premiered to unexpected commotion Saturday afternoon: Midway through the screening, climate activists rushed the stage carrying a banner reading "no film on a dead planet," drawing boos from the crowd until security pulled the protesters off stage.

Co-starring Jacob Elordi and Michael Imperioli, "Oh, Canada" follows an ailing filmmaker (Richard Gere) as he's interviewed for a documentary about his life. Uma Thurman is a heartbreaking standout as his wife, who is forced to watch as her husband unveils unsavory details about his past.

The "Pulp Fiction" star said she was initially intimidated to work with a "master of cinema" like Schrader, but found him to be "a big softie."

"I was very nervous to meet him — you know, this macho filmmaker making these legendary films," Thurman said during a post-screening Q&A. "As I was on my way to the meeting, the person driving me was Googling him. She was like, 'Oh, my God, he's a huge Taylor Swift fan!' I was like, 'What?' And then I read Paul's tweet defending Taylor, and I was like, 'Oh, I'm in good hands.'"

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is Oscar-worthy in 'Hard Truths'

Later Saturday, Marianne Jean-Baptiste brought the house down at a raucous screening of Mike Leigh's "Hard Truths," about a venom-spewing older woman named Pansy in working-class London. Pansy’s misanthropy is at once hilarious, but her walls slowly come down to reveal a deep-seated pain and loneliness.

Jean-Baptiste is best known to American audiences for TV crime procedurals such as "Without a Trace" and "Blindspot." She could very well land an Oscar nod for her acerbic and devastating performance, nearly 30 years after her first nomination for another Leigh film, 1996's "Secrets & Lies."

Preparing for the film, "I did little exercises where I went to the supermarket as Pansy. No one got hurt in the process!" the British actress joked during a post-screening Q&A. "Hard Truths" ends on an ambiguous note, "and I think that's beautiful. It allows audience members to make up their own mind. We often don't know where people's pain comes from."

The festival concludes later this week with World War II drama "Blitz" starring Saoirse Ronan.