Daniel Craig On The Pros And Cons Of James Bond
In a new interview with the Guardian, Daniel Craig speaks about the pros and cons of playing James Bond in Casino Royale…
‘When I got the call, it really was left-field,’ said Craig on learning he was up to become the next 007. ‘Honoured though I was, I wasn’t deeply enthusiastic. I met Barbara and Michael, who are lovely people and they were trying to take it in a different direction.’
‘For me, at that stage, it was promises, promises. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a script and I can’t say yes without a script. I walked away from it because I thought this is taking up too much of my life. I was thinking about it too much.’
Upon finally seeing the Casino Royale script, Craig said: ‘Paul Haggis had sprinkled his magic dust on it. I was honestly wanting to dislike it. It would have been an easy decision. I could have said, “That’s very nice. Good luck with it.” But it was too much. I sweated when I read the script. I thought, this is a great story, probably because it adhered to the book quite closely, and I just thought, “You’ve got to be really silly not to have a think about this.”‘
‘I made pro and con lists. Every time the pros outdid the cons. The cons were like: you’re going to get typecast. Which is a high-class problem to have.’ Another con was: ‘You might not be able to do other stuff, to which I replied, “Who says?”‘ After a brief discussion with former-Bond Pierce Brosnan, he said: ‘Go for it. It’s a ride.’
‘He makes mistakes,’ says Craig of his Bond in Casino Royale. ‘He’s vulnerable and falls in love. He’s everything Bond isn’t supposed to be. It appealed to me–showing him screwing up, bleeding and getting hurt–because that’s the kind of actor I am, but also it works dramatically. If he’s just action, action, action, and then he falls in love, the reaction’s gonna be, like, “Ah, bulls–t.” I wanted that progression and the script gave me that.’
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