Guadagnino, convinced Craig was right for the role, approached the actor with the script. In Craig, Guadagnino saw someone, he says, who was “open to play.” Within days, Craig, long an admirer of Guadagnino’s films, was in.

The director detailed his ambitions around the William S. Burroughs novella while the actor known for playing James Bond praised the daring script.

The star kills off his Bond to inhabit a dissolute American expat in Luca Guadagnino’s handsome adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novella.