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  As James Bond
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  Skyfall
  As James Bond
  Released
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  The Girl with the Dragon
  Tattoo
  As Mikael Blomkvist
  Released
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  Cowboys and Aliens
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  Adventures of Tintin:
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  As Red Rackham
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  Dream House
  As Will Atenton
  Released
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  A Steady Rain
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  As A Police Officer, Joey
  Closed
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  Defiance
  As Tuvia Bielski
  Released
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  Quantum of Solace
  As James Bond
  Released
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Online:

It's Not Easy Being Bond

By Emmanuel Itier
iF Magazine
November 16, 2006
View online

Gorgeous women, fast cars and martinis shaken not stirred are what makes James Bond’s world go round. Daniel Craig is the latest Bond to fill the shoes started out by Sean Connery more than forty years ago. Fans did not warmly receive Craig when he was announced as the next choice to play Bond, but his new movie is poised to assassinate the box office this weekend. CASINO ROYALE is more of a re-boot of an aging franchise that brings some welcome new faces and the first continuity free Bond film since DR. NO. iF MAGAZINE trapped the newest British super spy to find out just what it takes to be Bond.

iF MAGAZINE: So, did you let yourself go after you wrapped production?
DANIEL CRAIG: You mean let myself go physically or physically let myself go? I did a little bit of both after it. I went on holiday and let myself go in lots of ways. But that was just because we were in France and eating good food and drinking lots of wine. And I have kept up going to the gym, but not quite as intensely as I was doing it during the film.

iF: Have you had time to breathe yet?
CRAIG: It wasn’t like that because we went straight into long-lead press, a junket for a week, where I actually had to go talk about the movie just as we finished it. And it was one of the most bizarre experiences because I hadn’t given it any thought. I’d been just working. People were going, “What’s it like to be Bond?” And I didn’t know. I still don’t really know. And then we went on holiday. So it’s kind of never stopped. As much as I went away on holiday, the phone was ringing every day and we were discussing stuff about how we were going to do this and how we’re going to do that and what the next stage is. It’s a full-time job. It’s a good job, though.

iF: We heard you indulged in several vodka martinis when you got the role. Were you a fan of the drink?
CRAIG: No, no. Believe me, nothing is like a good one. I’m not bad at mixing them, either. I used to do that in pubs, in bars. I’m quite particular about them.

iF: You had to go through a lot to get the role and you’ve had to deal with the press and Internet since getting it. Why did you want it?
CRAIG: There are simple answers and there’s no kind of bulls**t attached to it. The script was great. I got it and I read it and I thought, “I’d be a fool not to have a go at this.” Hindsight is a very easy thing to say, but I was going, “If I don’t do this, you’re going to regret not having a go at this,” because he is one of the biggest, iconographic in movie history. And I’m an actor. This is what I do for a living. If I don’t take on challenges like this, then what’s the point? Work was going well. It’d been going very well for me and I’ve been very happy with what I’ve been doing.
And I so didn’t expect it to happen. I had other kinds of plans in my mind, maybe, what I wanted to do and how I wanted to carry on, but this came along and Barbara Broccoli is very persuasive. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

iF: How different at the end of the day is something like Bond vs. THE MOTHER?
CRAIG: It is and it isn’t. You’d be surprised, really. The biggest difference on a movie set like that is when you walk on and you’re doing a huge stunt sequence. Then you get an understanding of how big the scale is. You see many more people on set. But when you’re dialogue sequence, when I’m doing it with Eva or I’m doing it with Mads, it’s scaled down. You’re trying to do the same thing as I was doing in The Mother. You’re just telling a story and you’re acting with other people. I don’t differentiate between the two, and that was important when we were doing the film. I didn’t want us to shoot two movies. I didn’t want to shoot an action movie and a love story, or whatever the story (part of it) was. I wanted it to be absolutely seamless. I wanted it to be so that I could see the storytelling going on in this.

iF: What was your most grueling stunt?
CRAIG: They were all pretty grueling, but I think the Madagascar sequence at the beginning, because of all the running involved. I picked up injuries, strained muscles. Running became … it hurt. I wouldn’t classify myself as a professional athlete in any way, but I understand now a little bit more about how professional athletes are constantly working through pain. And painkillers go a long way.

iF: How pleased were you that this is a low-tech Bond adventure, light on the gadgets?
CRAIG: It was not a debatable issue, and that was from all of us. That was from Martin. That was from Gary Powell, the stunt coordinator, and Barbara and Michael. It was NOT a debatable issue. We are making a movie here, which is that any gadget, any kind of effect that happens, is part of the storytelling. You see at Miami Airport there are a lot of planes landing. They were there to sort of say, “We’re in Miami. Here are the planes.” We couldn’t have planes landing in the back of shots, so we had CGI to give us that. But nothing that you see in the movie, stunt-wise, is not happening. It’s all happening. And if it’s not me doing, it’s someone else doing it, and they’re getting hurt. You also find out what it’s like falling down a flight of stairs. It feels like you’re falling down a f**king flight of stairs. And that’s what we wanted to feel. We wanted to feel the pain, the pain in it.