Daniel Craig Once Felt That His James Bond Was Everything James Bond Wasn’t Supposed to Be
Before becoming the new James Bond, Daniel Craig had some reservations about becoming the new face of 007. But his worries were later put to rest when he saw the kind of James Bond he’d be playing.
Daniel Craig originally walked away from the role of James Bond
When Craig had gotten the call from producer Barbara Broccoli that she wanted him to be the new Bond, Craig met the offer with skepticism. Although he was assured that Bond was heading in a newer direction, the actor wasn’t immediately on board.
“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,” Craig once told The Guardian. “I walked away from it because I thought this is taking up too much of my life. I was thinking about it too much.”
But Craig couldn’t forget about the opportunity. Later, the actor would star in the Steven Spielberg project Munich, and would seek the filmmaker’s advice.
“I said to Steven, ‘Bond isn’t this kind of film.’ He said, ‘If the script’s right and if the deal’s right, do the job,'” Craig recalled.
Daniel Craig felt that his James Bond was everything Bond wasn’t supposed to be
When Craig finally received a script for the movie, he didn’t want to enjoy what he was about to read. But the final draft of the screenplay proved too good for the actor to deny.
“Paul Haggis [writer of the Oscar-winning Crash and Million Dollar Baby] 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,'” he said.
Craig was especially taken by how imperfect his Bond was written to be compared to previous versions.
“He makes mistakes. 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***.’ I wanted that progression and the script gave me that,” Craig added.
Why Daniel Craig wanted to change James Bond
Craig originally wasn’t too keen on the common characterization of Bond, and was hoping it would be modified. At the time, this was also part of the reason why the Knives Out star was hesitant to inherit the Bond mantle from Pierce Brosnan.
“Well, the emotional level is not there and that’s important for me,” Craig once said according to Daniel Craig: The Biography. “I’d want that to change but I don’t know how ready they’d be to change that. You’d have to flip the whole thing on its head. I think they want to do that seriously but it’s a big machine and it makes a lot of money. So why would you change something that makes a lot of money?”
Craig also felt that the new Bond needed to be a bit more ruthless to reflect the real world.
“They need to do something and, if I was being honest, I’d love to play him but I’m just not sure it’s possible. The problem is, it’s always looking back. It has to because it was brilliant when it started, and it slowly got worse and worse. I think Pierce Brosnan did a fantastic job when he came in, but that was ten years go. And the world is a much more cynical place now. And spies are f****** nasty c****, and I feel that’s the way they have to go.”
