After a dazzling career spanning 25 years, acclaimed British actor Ben Whishaw has proven he can truly do it all.
The genre-leaping star has helmed gun-touting thrillers (Black Doves), messy menage a trois’ (Passages) and bleak social dramas that expose the failings of a crumbling system (This Is Going to Hurt).
He’s wooed young fans with his charming portrayal of Paddington, moved LGBTQ+ viewers with his wide array of onscreen queer characters, and lured in action-junkies as Q in the James Bond franchise.
As the upcoming era of the beloved Bond saga, directed by Dune filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, searches for the new lead star, Metro asks the Skyfall actor who he could see as the next 007.
‘I find I’m actually a terrible casting director. I don’t know who it should be,’ he jokes at first.
Then adds: ‘For me, it’s always best when they do a really big gear shift from the previous incarnation. I don’t know precisely what that means, but I think something left field, something unexpected. I think it shouldn’t try to be someone like Daniel Craig.’
As for Ben, much like his vision for the future of Bond, his own latest role may be his boldest gamble yet.
Dexterous as ever – in a sharp 180 from his blockbuster threequel, Paddington in Peru – his newest movie, Peter Hujar’s Day, is a soulful arthouse indie in which he reunites with Passages filmmaker Ira Sachs.
The unique feature lifts a real-life taped conversation between 70s New York photographer Peter Hujar and his friend, writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall), where he recounts 24 hours of his life in vivid detail.
Performed as an almost singular 76-minute-long diatribe, with occasional interjections from Linda, it paints an intimate portrait of Peter’s life in which he craved more for himself and his art, to a torturous degree.
I meet the actor at The Londoner in the gloom of the December twilight. He’s sitting cross-legged on a wide sofa as I perch next to him, recorder in hand.
It’s not lost on me that we’re mimicking the very movie we were here to discuss. Life imitating art, indeed.
‘We knew that the project had very tight boundaries,’ he says while explaining how different Peter is from the characters he’s played before.
‘Everything that we were going to find was going to come from these words. There was just a lot of learning to do, and the difficulty of learning something that was not written to be learned by somebody. It’s not a script. It’s not been crafted in any way.
‘There’s not really an order to it [except] relaying the day from beginning to end. The way his mind moves is very….’ he pauses, rooting for the right word.
‘Rambling?’ I ask.
‘Yes, exactly.’
Despite the calibre of his subjects and the renowned publications he freelanced for, the late photographer went largely unrecognised in life, with his posthumous reputation far outpacing his living one.
The 45-year-old actor was ‘struck’ by the depths of Peter’s poverty as he unpicked the layers of his life during his preparation for the role.
‘He died practically penniless. I saw some photos that I’d not seen before of him towards the end of his life, and he’s just wearing the same tatty jeans and these heartbreaking shoes that are falling apart.
‘His desire for fame was based on a real lack. There’s something very moving to me about that, because he was very devoted to his art,’ he reflects.
The way the film deals with failure, and Peter’s fraught relationship with it, deeply resonated with the Emmy-winning star.
‘What touched me was how much of [the movie] was about failure and self-doubt as an artist. The pain of having failed at what you’re trying to do, but also the value of failure to spur you on.
‘Towards the end of the film, Peter reflects on a photo that he’s taken in his day of [acclaimed poet] Allen Ginsberg, and how he doesn’t really feel like this photo is very good, and what that means to him.
‘I feel quite intimate with this feeling of reflecting and feeling like you failed to do what you wanted or what you hoped or dreamed of doing. I think there’s something in that that’s not only confined to artists or people who make things,’ he says.
This is his second collaboration with Ira, motivated by his love of the filmmaker’s ‘portraits of gay and queer life’ and the way he can even infuse a heterosexual tale with a type of ‘queerness’.
But most of all, he respects the way Ira stretches his skill to its limit, even a quarter of a century into the industry.
‘The way he challenges me, I feel a little scared in a good way.
‘He is somebody who is not frightened of telling you: “I don’t believe you”, which is a really valuable thing. I’ve been acting now for 20-odd years.
‘You crave these people who test you and push you and move you out of your comfort zone,’ he adds with a gleam in his eye.
The screen star knows the impact of his work, sees it in his everyday interactions with fans, especially those from the LGBTQ+ community, like the restaurant waiter whose perspective was changed by his gay Black Doves character Sam, a troubled contract killer.
‘[The waiter told me] he hadn’t seen a queer person portrayed quite like this, and it had made him realise something about his own sexuality.
‘He said it in such a heartfelt, intimate way that I felt really moved and honoured, actually, that he’d shared it with me. It just means a great deal to me that you could share in something like that with someone,’ Ben recalls in awe.
As for the future, he has more adventures as Paddington to look forward to, and reveals his hopes for the lovable bear’s shenanigans with a wry laugh.
‘I’ve not actually ever read any of the books, but I feel the books are full of his adventures in mundane places. I think he goes to the dentist or something, which would be a good one. Any place where a bear really shouldn’t be, [he should be],’ he shares with a grin.
And, though it might seem as though he’s traversed every genre the arts have to offer, he still has ambitions for what he would like to try his hand at next.
When I ask him which world he would love to inhabit in the future, there’s a moment’s hesitation before he replies.
‘I’d really love to do a detective mystery, or maybe even more specifically, something in the territory of Gosford Park; lots of people in a house where a murder happens. I would really like to be in a film like that,’ he concludes with a satisfied grin.
It might not be Gosford Park, but we certainly wouldn’t say no to seeing him reunite with Daniel Craig on screen for the next Knives Out. So, Rian Johnson, if you’re reading, pick up the phone!
Peter Hujar’s Day is in UK cinemas from January 2, 2026.
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