Daniel Craig: 'Bond still wants to have sex'

Daniel Craig
Photo: Paul Stuart; Styling: Gareth Scourfield

You described Skyfall as ‘Bond with bells on’. So how would you describe Spectre? Same bells, different tune?
There you go, that’s perfect! Skyfall did really well and broke all sorts of records and was a massive success. Then we had to do another one – which for all of us, Sam Mendes included, felt incredibly daunting. So if that was bells on, there’s more of everything in this film. It felt completely the right thing to do.

Did you always plan to play Bond for a fourth time? It's been ten years now.
Well, I was contracted to do another one. That was all set up. But at the studio there was a real keenness to get it done as soon as possible. In fact, there was a conversation at one point that went: ‘Let’s film two movies back to back.’ I just went: ‘You’re out of your minds.’ In the nicest possible way. They’re just too big.

Can you imagine doing another Bond movie?
Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.

Move on from Bond for good?
I haven’t given it any thought. For at least a year or two, I just don’t want to think about it. I don’t know what the next step is. I’ve no idea. Not because I’m trying to be cagey. If I did another Bond movie, it would only be for the money.

There was more humour in Skyfall than in the previous two you did. Will that continue?
It was conscious. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. I just think there’s room for it. Especially when you’ve got someone like Sam Mendes at the helm who is the truth police – and I’m the truth police, too. We’re always asking: is this real? Then the humour can happen. But it’s not gag writing. They’re not the kind of movies I want to make. Really, really, really good gags are few and far between.

Were you involved in bringing Sam Mendes back to direct?
Yes. They offered him loads of money, of course, but I was also begging him to do it. They wanted to make the movie very quickly at first and he said he couldn’t. He just didn’t have [the] time.

He had three theatre productions he was working on: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the revival of Cabaret and King Lear. How he does it, I have no idea.

Were you disappointed when it looked like he wouldn’t do it?
I was gutted. I felt we’d just got somewhere, me and him. Skyfall was very fraught. He’d happily tell you. The two of us butted heads a lot and had very passionate discussions. But we got through it.

We got through his nervousness – it was his first Bond movie. He came on a set with a crew I’ve known for a number of years. We’re all pals. And I’m nervous because I’ve asked him to do the film and I want him to be comfortable but I also want to push him. And we’re not just strangers, we know each other, so we can shout at one another. It became a proper friendship on this new movie. I felt massively supported by him, in a different way. He had my back and I certainly had his.

Daniel Craig in 'Spectre'

Playing James Bond is a lot about how you look – the clothes, the walk, the fitness. Do you ever get fed up with all that?
It’s a drag. The best acting is when you’re not concerned about the surface. And Bond is the opposite of that. You have to be bothered about how you’re looking. It’s a struggle. 

I know that how Bond wears a suit and walks into a room is important. But as an actor I don’t want to give a [damn] about what I look like! So I have to play with both things. In a way that works. That’s Bond: he looks good and he doesn’t give a [damn] what you think he looks like!

The most famous image of you as Bond is you in your blue trunks coming out of the sea in Casino Royale. How do you feel when you look at that ten years on?
I don’t look at it, weeping, going ‘Wasn’t I beautiful!’ Everything like that has been a voyage of discovery. I was aware of what was needed to be Bond, but it still goes against everything I believe in.

I’m not the coolest human being. I wish I was, but I’m not. And I don’t pretend to be. But playing James Bond, you have to be cool, and what the hell is cool? You could write a dissertation on it! That was a big accident, that particular shot. I was pretending to be cool to swim, I thought it looked stupid, and I stood up and walked off – and that was the shot!

Do you ever look back and think: how the hell did I end up playing James Bond?
I know, it’s ludicrous, it’s ridiculous. When I first got approached, I just thought: ‘You’ve made a mistake.’ I don’t know, it’s still crazy.

What does Bond not allow you to do generally as an actor, beyond the role?
Bond allows me to do anything I want to in some respects. But it’s changed my working life in an incredible way. There are more opportunities. I could do many, many things. But it takes an awful amount of time. If anything, the restriction is that it is incredibly time-consuming.

Bond has a ‘special’ relationship with women. Is he a dinosaur?
Well, I think you have to walk a thin line. I think it’s okay for him – not to be misogynistic, that’s too strong a word – to find women a little difficult, shall we say? That’s a character thing. If you start judging him completely on that, I think you’re lost. And that comes with casting.

You do your best to make the parts for the women in the movie as strong and as interesting as possible. Otherwise, I’m like, forget it. Because that world, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t exist any more. Characters like that exist. People do think like that, so there’s the conflict. Put that in a movie.

Bond still wants to have sex. I still think he wants to [screw] anything with a pulse. It’s about how the women change him. That, for me, is interesting.

Do you care who plays Bond after you?
Look, I don’t give a [damn]. Good luck to them! All I care about is that if I stop doing these things, we’ve left it in a good place and people pick it up and make it better.

So if someone rang you and said: ‘I’ve taken the 007 gig’. What advice would you give?
Don’t be sh*t! Go for it. Embrace it. Some clichéd line like that. But no, just make sure you’re great. You’ve got to push yourself as far as you can. It’s worth it, it’s James Bond.

Spectre is in cinemas from Nov 5. Read our review of the movie.