Daniel Craig can make a still face funny or difficult to read without appearing to do much at all. We admire his restraint, but his needy, unguarded performance in Queer is the strongest work we have seen from him.
Fi1m perspective
In Logan Lucky (2017), Daniel Craig explains the chemistry of an explosion to two men who cannot follow him. His Joe Bang treats blowing up a vault as skilled work, and Craig keeps his face still while the people around him panic. We laughed out loud at that seriousness; he makes being the only competent person present look like a considerable burden. Steven Soderbergh shoots and edits the film without fuss, leaving room for the bleached hair, the drawl and the solemn delivery. The comedy is loose and runs on too long, but Craig gives it a reason to keep watching.
The difficulty of reading him was already useful in Our Friends in the North (1996), his breakthrough as Geordie. Alongside Christopher Eccleston and Mark Strong, he holds our attention without making each feeling immediately available, and Peter Flannery’s writing lets the performances remain distinct. The lead in Layer Cake (2004) came before five films as James Bond, from Casino Royale (2006) to No Time to Die (2021). As Bond, he combined physical force with a vulnerability that made the character feel less secure.
By Knives Out (2019), that comic appetite had found Benoit Blanc and his exaggerated Southern drawl. Rian Johnson gets something better than vocal display from him in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025). Arriving well into the film, Craig plays Blanc more quietly opposite Josh O’Connor’s young priest, Jud, whose faith gives the detective’s reliance on evidence something to push against. Their conversations matter because neither man can simply settle the question for the other. We prefer this quieter Blanc: Johnson gives him someone worth listening to, and Craig does not need to decorate every line.
Queer (2024) asks more of him, and Luca Guadagnino gets his most affecting performance. As William Lee, Craig walks with an unsteady swagger, talks past the point at which anyone is listening, and lets his eyes plead while his mouth keeps trying to be witty. When Drew Starkey’s Eugene Allerton agrees to a second drink, the change in Craig’s face makes the need painfully plain. The film falters when Guadagnino reaches for effects and Marco Costa’s editing loses the pace it had in the city. Start with Logan Lucky for the comedy; choose Queer for Craig, with patience for a film that becomes much less interesting than its leading man.
Biography
Daniel Craig is an English actor. He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on 2 March 1968 in Chester, Cheshire. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1991.
Craig began his career on stage and in television, appearing in the serial Our Friends in the North (1996). He gained prominence in films including Elizabeth (1998), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Road to Perdition (2002), Layer Cake (2004) and Munich (2005). In 2006 he played James Bond in Casino Royale, reprising the role in Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
His other film roles include Logan Lucky (2017) as Joe Bang, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) as Mikael Blomkvist, and Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out series, including Glass Onion (2022) and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025). He played William Lee in Queer (2024). Craig has also appeared on stage in productions such as Angels in America.
