VENICE LIDO, Italy – Daniel Craig is currently enjoying a run as gay detective Benoit Blanc in the “Knives Out” series and that’s leap years away from his dramatically different homosexual character in “Queer,” which world premiered Tuesday night at the Venice Film Festival.

Adapted from an autobiographical novel by William S. Burroughs (“Naked Lunch”), “Queer” finds Craig’s alcoholic, drug addicted William Lee adrift in 1950s Mexico, obsessed with Eugene (Drew Starkey of “Love, Simon”), a much younger, maybe gay guy.

In sexually explicit scenes that rival Nicole Kidman’s “Babygirl,” which also world premiered here, the two men struggle to be together or apart.

“There is choreography in the movie which is very important. Drew and I started rehearsals on that months before we started filming.  Dancing with someone is a great ice breaker.

“You know as well as I do that there is nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set,” Craig, 56, emphasized. “You have a lot of people watching you. We just wanted to make it as touching and real and as natural as we possibly could. Drew is a fantastic, beautiful actor to work with.”

“We jumped into rehearsals early on and not just on intimate scenes,” Starkey, 30, said.  “But the moves freed up our bodies to feel open to try new things.

“It was a couple of weeks of just exploring and then we got on set and were just going for it. I’ve never had an experience like this. I’m not a dancer, Daniel is definitely not a dancer” – Craig did a double take – “but we learned something together.”

When a reporter asked Craig about a gay James Bond, he demurred.

For “The Challengers” and “Call Me By Your Name” director, Italy’s Luca Guadagnino, making “Queer” satisfies a childhood dream.

“The joy was the starting point for me. When I read this when I was 17, this slim book, I fell into it. The vivid imagination of his writing and the profound connection he was achingly describing on the page between these two characters! The complete lack of judgement in the way in which these characters were behaving, the romanticism of this adventure with someone you want to love.

“Reading this transformed and changed me forever. Because I want to be loyal to that young boy, I kept thinking ‘I have to bring this to the screen.’”

As to what he wants viewers to take from “Queer,” “I want the audience at the end to have an idea of self. Who are we when we are alone? Who are we looking for? Who do we want beside us?

“No matter who you’re looking for, who are you when you are alone in that bed?”

A24 will distribute “Queer” in theaters before the end of the year.

Daniel Craig poses for photographers at the photo call for the film ‘Queer’ during the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)