Ben Wishaw on Berlin Drama ‘Peter Hujar’s Day’ and Gay Characters

Ben Whishaw isn’t averse to juggling multiple and very different projects, but even he admits there was a point last year when things reached near farcical levels.

Around the same time he was shooting Netflix’s pulpy spy thriller series “Black Doves,” playing a contract killer with a conscience alongside Keira Knightley, he was recording the voice of Paddington Bear for the marmalade lover’s latest family adventure, “Paddington in Peru,” while also rehearsing for his lead role in a new West End adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s bleak tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot.”

“And all in one week! It was one of the strangest gear switches ever,” he says, speaking to Variety from his apartment in East London during a rare and brief period of rest for one of the U.K.’s most in-demand talents. “But it is nice to inhabit so many different worlds.”

Whishaw’s latest gear switch takes him to a different world entirely — to New York’s East Village in the early 1970s — for “Peter Hujar’s Day,” having its international premiere in Berlin.

The film, the 44-year-old’s second with director Ira Sachs after “Passages,” sees him play the titular photographer — whose work was only celebrated posthumously after he died of AIDS in 1987 — in an unorthodox biopic spanning just 24 hours and based on a taped conversation between Hujar and his author friend Linda Rosenkrantz (played by Rebecca Hall) in which she asked him to recall the events of a day, however mundane.

It’s a concept Whishaw himself admits is “obviously a strange proposition for a film as it isn’t inherently dramatic,” but says the end result proved to be “beautiful and meditative.” (Glowing reviews from Sundance would appear to agree.) Another film collaboration with Sachs is already in the works.
“We have similar tastes and interests — it’s really lovely to share those things with somebody,” says Whishaw.

Although he claims he’s “beholden” to whatever is sent his way, Whishaw admits his eclectic array of roles are part of a conscious effort to avoid being pigeon-holed.

“Somewhere in your mind, you have to refuse to be categorized, you have to keep very free,” he says. “People love to categorize and file you somewhere and you have to really resist that, however that ultimately manifests.”

Thankfully, given a resume that — alongside his most famous performances as James Bond’s gadget-master Q and Paddington — includes a notorious murderer (“Perfume”), 19th century poet John Keats (“Bright Star”), a bohemian Russian dissident (“Limonov: The Ballad”), a beleaguered junior doctor (“This Is Going to Hurt”), a flawed English king (“Richard II”) and Rolling Stones axe man Keith Richards (“Stoned”), Whishaw’s made any attempt at categorization a near-impossible task.

If there was a potential pigeon-hole, it could simply be that of an actor who rarely misses, with the words “career-best” appearing to follow Whishaw across each critical appraisal. Indeed, two Emmys, three BAFTA TV awards and a Golden Globe don’t really do justice to a career for someone considered one of England’s finest. “A Judi Dench in the making” is how one talent rep describes him. Oscars acclaim is surely just around the corner.

Another, more off-screen, label for Whishaw might be “unwaveringly polite” (as we speak, he’s having a door fitted and Variety can hear him in the background profusely thanking the tradesman on its completion and making sure to ask for his name).

But even despite the wide-ranging nature of his roles, Whishaw has said that the direction of the more recent characters he’s been offered has given him pause for reflection. Most notably, “Black Doves,” in which his shotgun-toting, brain-on-wall-splattering assassin also happens to be gay.

“This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about,” he says. “I’m quite fascinated in how much has changed in the 20 years since I started acting,” Simply put: playing an openly gay hit man would never have been an option when a fresh-faced Whishaw first emerged from RADA in 2003 aged 22 (and broke out the following year for his Olivier-nominated performance of Hamlet at the Old Vic).

“There were not roles like this … there were not depictions of queer people like this,” he says. “Now you can play someone who’s not straight, and not that it’s irrelevant, but it’s not their defining characteristic — that person might have many other interesting facets. And those people can be the center of a story that appeals to a large audience … that’s new!”

Whishaw — who publicly came out in 2014 (although by then he was already two years into a civil partnership with composer Mark Bradshaw, with whom he split in 2022) — says he was actually advised early on to keep his sexuality under wraps.

“I remember it was conveyed to me clearly that you should keep it a bit hush-hush that you’re gay and not to make much of a thing about it,” he recalls. “Even though I wasn’t hiding it from my friends or the people in my life, it was something to be hidden and you had to pass for straight. But if you wanted to get roles, that was what was required of you.”

The advice came from other actors and, he insists, was offered “with care,” simply with “an eye on the reality of the situation at the time.”

Back then, Ian McKellen, Simon Callow, Simon Russell Beale and Rupert Everett were the only prominent openly gay actors in the U.K.

“And I think that was it — it was a pretty tiny proportion. I can’t think of anyone who was my age,” says Whishaw. “So I do really want to acknowledge the bravery and brilliance of those people, because it wasn’t nothing that we had them to look up to. And I’m grateful that we’ve moved on from that time, because it felt horrible.”

Times have thankfully changed, to the extent that in the 2021 James Bond hit “No Time to Die” — the latest installment of a franchise that had previously failed to even acknowledge the existence of anyone that wasn’t heterosexual — it was revealed that Q is gay. However historic, it was just a fleeting mention in one scene and never referenced again. (Whishaw himself told The Guardian that “some things were not great” about the creative decision, even if it came “from a good place.”)

If and how Q’s sexuality is explored further remains to be seen, but Whishaw suspects it won’t be with him in the role.

“I would like to, because I think it could be fun to have some crossover, but I wonder if they might just begin all over again and recast the whole thing,” he says. As for the question it’s practically illegal not to ask, he says the next Bond should be “someone unexpected, from the left field — I don’t think Daniel [Craig] was necessarily the go-to person when the job became available. It was a shock.”

Despite playing an iconic role in one of the world’s biggest film franchises, Whishaw has managed to remain almost entirely out of the public eye. Few outside his own circle knew about his decade of marriage, nor anything else concerning his private life. For an actor of his calibre and acclaim, he has one of the lowest profiles going (he says he first started talking to Sachs on Instagram, but has long since deleted his account).

But for Whishaw, it’s still too high.

“I would rather be even more low-profile,” he says, smiling and almost comically deadpan, but clearly serious. “I’d be happy not to do anything other than work, if I’m honest.”

Such shyness and aversion to fame only adds to Whishaw’s charm. But he acknowledges it doesn’t sit too well when it comes to crucial promotional activities.

“I don’t particularly like dressing up. I don’t like red carpets. I don’t like having my photo taken,” he says. “But you have to do it a bit, otherwise people get upset with me. And, of course, talking to you is lovely.”

Flattery gets you everywhere, which brings us to another possible throughline connecting many of Whishaw’s projects: an enviably luxuriant head of hair that appears to have been expertly cast — in various shapes and styles — across each role (and even Paddington boasts arguably the finest CGI follicles seen on screen).

“I’ve just got a lot of hair!” he laughs. “I did shave it all off once, and my agent in the U.S was like, ‘actually, you looked better before.’” But it’s all part of Whishaw’s adaptability.

“I’ve tried to be versatile with it,” he says. “I guess while I have some hair, I should use it.”