Nov 13 2006

This is James Bond as you have never seen him before. As actor Daniel Craig prepares for his premiere as 007, Jade Wright speaks to the Merseyside friends who knew him best.

DANIEL CRAIG has joined the Hollywood A list, with a string of successful films and relationships with top models under his belt. But it has not always been that way.

As a teenager he devoted his time to Hilbre High School rock band, Liverpool FC and sitting in the audience at the Everyman theatre, where he dreamed of greater things.

A nine year-old Daniel settled in Hoylake in 1977 with his mother Olivia, sister Lea and later stepfather Max Blond. There he met and befriended a young Adam Brierley.

"Danny and I had been friends since we were nine," says Adam, now 38. "He moved in a couple of roads away from my parents' house so I invited him to play football with us on the beach. After that we were friends through most of our school life.

"His stepdad was an artist and in a jazz band and I was always in bands from the age of seven, so I liked going round to his house to see the instruments and equipment.

"In secondary school my friend Pa u l Donnelly and I decided to put together a band. We wanted a charismatic frontman, but our voices were breaking - not exactly rock star material. I thought Danny would be perfect. He was very confident. He had a real presence on stage, he was always in stage shows - you could see how good he was even then.

"The name for the band was Danny's idea; he was very into the theatre and I think he'd seen a play called Inner Voices at the Everyman. We all liked the name and it stuck."

To complete the line-up they recruited Paul King on rhythm guitar and friend Andy Fennah as lead guitarist; both lads in the same year at Hilbre High School.

"We'd been mates for years," remembers Andy from Greasby. "We were all into music so it seemed the natural thing to be in a band together. We used to do gigs at school and we entered a few competitions.

"Danny was always saying he wanted to be an actor and he was very good. I remember seeing him in the school plays and you could see his potential."

So Inner Voices, a band named after an obscure Louis Nowra play at the Everyman, was born.

"In our final year the headmaster, Wally Bruce, was having a leaving concert," says Adam. "He was very religious and it was billed as a highbrow event with classical music, but we somehow managed to get a slot for Inner Voices. Trying to be rebellious we played a rocked up version of the House Of The Rising Sun. To our horror we found out The Animals were Mr Bruce's favourite band."

The song was greeted with tumultuous applause from pupils and teachers, and soon after they recorded their version with the help of Andy's brothers Rob and Alan.

"I took them into the recording studio with their teacher," says Rob Fennah, who now works as a professional musician. "They weren't bad actually. It was all done live - we didn't have time to lay down different tracks, so it wandered a bit, but the end result was OK.

"Daniel wasn't full of himself at all. He was very quiet - the spotty one at the back with a big flick haircut. He was always a nice lad, but we'd never have guessed he'd end up as James Bond."

Friends say the song still holds a special significance to Daniel, and it played a part in his first major TV series, Our Friends In The North.

"I noticed the House Of The Rising Sun was the background music in a key scene and Paul told me that Dan had something to do with choosing it," says Adam.

Story continues Continue story
ADVERTISEMENT

Not all of Daniel's school pals were quite so complimentary about his success, though. Classmate Chris Sargisson jokes about the 007 star: "Danny and I were friends at school until he replaced me in the school rock band. All because he, or rather his dad I think, had a microphone and I didn't. I was gutted and never spoke to him again.

"I am a life long Bond fan so imagine how I felt when I found out he was cast the role I was born to play."

Daniel was also a keen sportsman, playing rugby for his school and for Hoylake RUFC. His father Tim Craig, formerly a theatre stagehand and later a recruitment boss in Chester, says he would have taken his rugby career further if he had not gone into acting.

But from an early age Daniel made his mark as an actor. At school he was spotted by his teacher Hilary Green at the auditions for a musical production of Oliver! He had come in with a friend but had no intention of auditioning.

"From the very first we knew we had something special," Hilary recalled. "His good looks, voice, personality, and an indefinable something, combined to make him riveting on stage. He was quite exceptional."

He was given the part as the undertaker, Mr Sowerberry, and was hailed as the star of the show. Following that success he was given the lead in the next play - the troubled hero John Proctor in Arthur Miller's dark masterpiece The Crucible. He went on to play the lead in Romeo And Juliet and an ugly sister in Cinderella.

"Daniel was a natural on the stage, and he showed it in his first role in Oliver," said Hilary, from Barnston.

"From then on I made sure we gave him every opportunity to develop. We worked together closely for three years, and he tried quite a few different things. He was always remarkably mature for his years, and he had a real edge."

He was also spotted by local amateur dramatic society, the Heswall Woolgatherers, to star in Alan Bleasdale's No More Sitting On The Old School Bench, alongside his childhood sweetheart Helen Gowland. The pair were together for two years before losing touch when he left for London and she started work as a secretary.

"He was a lovely lad and I'm sure he hasn't changed much," Helen has said. "He still looks much like he did when he was 15. We were close and I have really good memories of Daniel."

Meanwhile, the actor's friends are eagerly awaiting his debut as Bond.

"I think he'll be very good - different from what has gone before, much grittier," says Adam. "We've watched all his previous stuff and we were delighted when we found out he'd be the next Bond. My two older boys are mad James Bond fans, so we'll all be going to see it together.

"And if they want anyone to write the theme tune for James Bond film I'm sure Inner Voices will oblige."

Источник

Oct 14 2005

By Adrian Butler, Liverpool Echo

The first blond James Bond - Hoylake actor Daniel Craig has scooped the coveted role of the world's favourite spy

THE ACTOR set to be named the new James Bond once played an ugly sister.

Merseyside drama teacher Brenda Davies today told how she discovered Daniel Craig.

And she revealed one of the Hilbre High pupil's early roles was less masculine than his new identity.

Craig is set to follow in the tough-guy footsteps of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.

Story continues Continue story
ADVERTISEMENT

But he appeared in a production at his Frankby Road, West Kirby, school as one of Cinderella's sisters.

Drama teacher Brenda Davies

Miss Davies said she had to convince the shy 13-year-old to audition for a part in a school play after he pulled a face at her.

But she said as soon as he got up on stage she knew he was going to be a star.

Miss Davies was auditioning for parts in musical Oliver! at the school in 1981 when Craig walked in.

She said: "Danny had tagged along with a friend who was auditioning for a part in Oliver. He just wanted to stay to watch his friend, and had no interest in auditioning.

"But I told him he could only stay if he auditioned too. He was adamant he wouldn't, and eventually pulled such a face I told him he'd be perfect for the part of the undertaker, Mr Sowerberry."

Miss Davies said she still remembers being bowled over by his audition.

She said: "He had such timing and range, and he had stage presence for a 13-year-old, I thought 'what have we got here?'.

"But if you'd asked me then if we'd had the next Bond on our hands, I could only have told you then he had the potential."

Story continues Continue story
ADVERTISEMENT

After getting the part of Mr Sowerberry in Oliver!, Miss Davies said Craig decided that he wanted to be an actor.

Miss Davies remembers him playing hotheaded Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet - and an ugly sister in Cinderella.

"Daniel was quite simply excellent, she said. "I'm sure he'll be the best Bond yet.

"He was always popular with his classmates, and like Bond, he was always popular with the girls. He may be the next Mr Bond but I'll always think of him as Mr Sowerberry."

Источник

by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Echo

WITH a lead role in a Hollywood blockbuster actor Daniel Craig is on the road to superstardom.

But the woman who helped inspire him as he grew up in Wirral is not at all surprised.

"It was all he ever wanted to do," explains his mother Carol Blond. "And I was somehow always quite sure he'd make it.

"It wasn't just a mother thing, he was just so determined I knew it was the only thing he could do."

Story continues Continue story
ADVERTISEMENT

Daniel, 34, appears alongside heavyweights Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in the gangster flick Road To Perdition and some critics have tipped him for an Oscar.

Although he has done endless theatre work and last year appeared as a rival raider to Angelina's Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, Daniel is probably best remembered as Geordie in the mid-90s television drama Our Friends in the North.

Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig in the film Road to Perdition

Road To Perdition looks set to change all that but Carol, an art teacher at Croxteth Comprehensive, seems to be taking it all in her stride.

Now 58 and living with third husband Max Blond in Hoylake, Carol cultivated the young Daniel's interest in acting after she moved with him and sister Lia from Frodsham to Wirral following the break-up of her marriage to Daniel's former merchant seaman father, Tim.

Confessing to being a bit " stagestruck" herself, she took her son to plays at The Everyman and to meet the actors.

It caught on, Carol says: "He was always performing, I would catch him tap dancing in school outside the offices."

On a cruise to the Norweigan Fjords with grandparents Olwyn and Doris Williams and aged just eight, he devised and performed a show for all on board.

Three seasons acting with the National Youth Theatre ensured that by the time Daniel left Hilbre High School at 16 there was only one career for him. But it wasn't easy.

After applying to LAMDA, RADA, The Young Vic and the Guild Hall School of Music and Drama, he was finally accepted at his preferred choice, the Guild Hall, on his third attempt.

"He had a rough time of it down in London," his mother says of the time he spent waiting on tables to make ends meet.

Shakespeare and theatre work followed before his acting breakthrough in the Morgan Freeman movie The Power Of One and later TV's Our Friends In The North.

Daniel Craig as Guy Crouchback in the mini-series Sword of Honour

The Road To Perdition premiered in London but a rather less exciting prior engagement prevented Carol from witnessing her son's big moment.

"I was being OFSTEDed at school," she laughs, before adding: "I'm not really into those events though - all that glitterati thing. I'm not sure Daniel is either."

Despite the Oscar buzz The Road To Perdition, the second movie from American Beauty director Sam Mendes, has received mixed reviews.

Carol still hasn't seen it but is looking forward to judging for herself. "I know the reviews have been mixed but Daniel seems to have come out quite well on the whole," she says modestly.

Story continues Continue story
ADVERTISEMENT

"When a film is as big as that and has stars like that in it people are looking to criticise it."

Carol will be in London to see Daniel perform alongside Michael Gambon in A Number at the West End's Royal Court Theatre, something the theatre-lover is very much looking forward to.

"I am impressed that he's managed to be successful on the screen and on stage," she says.

"I always thought if he could make it in British theatre he would be secure for life."

As for Daniel himself, his continuing Hollywood success seems assured, he has been cast to play poet laureate Ted Hughes alongside Gwyneth Paltrow as his wife, writer Sylvia Plath.

He also has a film due out with Notting Hill director Richard Curtis, co-starring former Coronation Street actress Ann Reid.

Carol doesn't expect his turn in the spotlight to affect her privacyloving son too much though. She says: "He has quietly been doing very well for a long long time.

"And he has been able to enjoy life. Fortunately fame has come at a time when he is old and wise enough to handle it.

Daniel Craig with Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider

"He has turned down big money parts in the past to retain credibility."

So how does he explain appearing in the big budget Tomb Raider?

Carol laughs: "He had to do that didn't he for the profile."

Films like Tomb Raider, Road To Perdition and the Ted Hughes role mean Daniel who shares a home in London with girlfriend Heike Makatsch - a German actress, is edging onto the A-list, but Carol doesn't foresee a move to Bel Air immediately.

She says: "I don't think he'll ship out there just yet. He is excited about the work but, like the rest of the family, he is pretty non-hysterical about these things.

"I am just happy to see him doing well in his job and part of that job happens to be that he's famous."

Источник

“I scrub up nicely,” he promises, grabbing a cup of black coffee and settling into an armchair. “ Wait until you see me in a Brioni tuxedo.”

As the newest Bond, Craig has many responsibilities resting on his buffed shoulders, and looking dashing in a dinner jacket is definitely among them. He takes over a franchise that has earned nearly $4 billion in the last four decades, and he plays a character who has inspired fantasies for even longer. As the star of Casino Royale (opening Nov. 17), Craig needs to prove that he is the spy of our dreams—ready to seduce women, shoot dangerous weapons and, hopefully, separate right from wrong.

“We are in a bit of a mess in the world right now, and I think everything has gotten confused,” says Craig. “The world is complicated, and politically there are very few heroes at the moment.”

James Bond remains everyone’s hero. But his image as an idealized and idolized man has changed over the years, and each generation seems to get the Bond it needs. It’s probably not a coincidence that the cool and confident Sean Connery was 007 in the cool and confident ’60s, or that we embraced smoothly perfect Pierce Brosnan—who looked like he spent more time at a spa than as a spy—in the flush and safe ’90s. In these more dangerous times, we edge toward a tougher, scrappier Bond. Craig fits the bill. He’s been described as “gritty” so often that I half expect to see dirt streaked on his face.

“Maybe I’m not the prettiest Bond that’s ever been, and maybe I’m not the suavest,” says Craig, who has been attacked on Web sites by fans complaining that, among other things, he’s too bland and blond to be Bond. “I read what’s being said, and I’m not going to defend myself. All I can say is there are millions of fans, and I don’t want to let them down. I’ve worked my butt off for this movie. I’m not going to foul it up.”

His language is considerably saltier than that, and he quickly apologizes. But his intensity—and anxiety—is real. Being an iconic figure of lust and longing is a lot to ask of a serious 38-year-old actor who grew up in Hoylake, England. Raised mostly by his mother after his parents separated, he didn’t pay a lot of attention in school. He left for London at age 16 to become an actor “because it was clear I was not going to get a piece of paper to my name, so my mother gave me a gentle push in the right direction.”

He scraped by, working for the National Youth Theatre, then attending the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Since then, he has appeared in some 30 movies, working steadily but without great renown in movies like Sylvia, where he co-starred with Gwyneth Paltrow, and Munich, where he played an assassin. This month, he appears as a convicted killer in Infamous.

“I’ve had kind of a slow go and nothing handed to me,” he says. “I got a lot of work quite young, but nothing that you’d call success. The experiences I’ve gained made me a happier person. If I had been successful when I was younger, I would have blown it.”

When the producers first approached Craig to play James Bond a year or so ago, he talked about it with family and friends. “They were split. Some people said, ‘God, yes,’ and other people went, ‘ God, no.’” Craig walked away, worried that he wasn’t ready for such a dramatic change in his life and career. Rumors circulated that some 200 actors, from Colin Farrell to Leonardo DiCaprio, were then considered for the role. But a few months later, the producers came back and showed Craig the script. “I wanted to hate it, but of course it was fantastic. So we talked, and I said, ‘I’ll only do it if you involve me on every level.’”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“The toilet paper,” he answers wryly. “I wanted to know what was going on with the toilet paper. With everything.”

Still, he didn’t always get his way. For example, the producers banned Bond from smoking in the movie in order not to send a bad message to young fans. “But here’s the reality,” says Craig. “I can blow off someone’s head at close range and splatter blood, but I can’t light a good Cuban.”

After long days of shooting, Craig worked out almost every night with a physical trainer. He had several stunt doubles but did as many of his own fights as he could. After six months, he was bruised, battered—and exhilarated.

“We should all have an adrenaline rush to wake ourselves up a bit,” he says. “I read a study where they found that the rats that take the most risks usually live longer. Basically, when you take risks, your heart rate goes up, you’re more excited, and you have a greater existence on this earth.”

He pauses. “Of course, the attrition is worse, because a lot of them die.”

Casino Royale was the first Bond novel, and the movie introduces 007 as if for the first time. Craig’s complexity and subtle humor may reveal a new side of the sexy spy. “I want the audience to question what Bond’s doing,” Craig explains. “I want them to ask about the killing: ‘Is that right?’ We’re in 2007 nearly, and it’s a different world. Relationships are more complicated. We can’t brush them aside. We can’t brush violence aside. We can’t brush intent or responsibility or outcome aside.

“That’s where we have the twist, where we have Bond’s distrust, his anger. Because he really is trying to find out who the bad guys are, but we just don’t know who the bad guys are anymore, do we?”

Craig meanders on, offering an intellectual discourse on good and evil, but then he stops, afraid of coming across as pretentious. “I think the bull level in this room just got too high,” he says.

James Bond is supposed to be a great womanizer, and Craig has solid credentials on that score. He has a 13-year-old daughter from an early relationship and speaks warmly of her mother. He lived for several years with German actress Heike Makatsch and is reported to have had flings with model Kate Moss and actress Sienna Miller. He’s now deeply involved with “a beautiful American producer” named Satsuki Mitchell.

“We’re together, and she’s been experiencing this whole situation with me,” he says. “That’s incredibly important. Any relationship needs a little love and care at least once a day. I don’t want to get soppy about it, but you’ve got to put the time in. It doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve got to keep putting it in.”

He takes a sip of coffee and gives a loud laugh, realizing that his emotional musings on love could have an earthier context. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, I do…” he trails off, embarrassed.
I notice a bracelet on his wrist and, leaning over, try to read what it says.

“It has some little quote on there,” Craig says. “‘The more joy we have, the more nearly perfect we are.’ It is a rather nice thing, isn’t it? It’s from Spinoza,” he adds, referring to the 17th-century philosopher.

“You really are an intellectual,” I tease.

“I didn’t read Spinoza,” he protests. “I just love the fact that the more joy we have, the more nearly perfect we are. It’s a good philosophy in life.”

I nod and ask if the bracelet was a gift from his girlfriend.

Now Craig recovers and gives me a perfect Bond smile. He is seductive and icy cold at the same time. Thoroughly appealing and in complete control. A man who could kill your enemy but break your heart. In that instant, I know he is going to be a fine Bond.

“None of your business,” he says.

отсюда

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 11/10/2008
Page 1 of 3

When Daniel Craig accepted his first 007 assignment, he knew he would be the focus of a storm of hysteria the world over. On the eve of his second Bond film, Quantum of Solace, Richard Grant finds him determined to cling on to reality as he once knew it.

Daniel Craig is sitting in a London hotel suite with his right arm in a sling, talking about the weirdness of being James Bond and what he does to counterbalance it: 'I go to the States, I get in a car with my girlfriend, I pick a direction and go that way, because you can go that way for a very long time. And once you get away from the cities and into the middle of nowhere, even if people recognise you, they've got more important things to think about, like getting on with life. If I didn't have that, if I couldn't escape, I'd go insane.'

Quantum of Solace, his second Bond film and the follow-up to Casino Royale, is about to be released and the whole flashbulb-popping hullabaloo is at maximum warp speed, although it is currently focused on Craig's injured shoulder, rather than the film, which strikes him as very weird indeed. 'I've been in New York for the past couple weeks, and I've just got back to London and now I've got 10 photographers chasing me around and they're in cars, trying to force us off the road because a shot of me in a sling is apparently a news story. It's just incredibly odd.'

Daniel Craig used to be a character actor, valued for his versatility and the intensity of his performances. Now he has become a brand, an icon, a figure from modern mythology, and the expectation follows him around that he should be like Bond off-screen, in his private life, all the time. Bond is supposed to be invincible, so when word gets out that Craig has his arm in a sling, a pack of photographers appears and tries to run him off the road - this is the ordinary madness of his new life, and if he ever starts to think of it as normal, that is when he will know that he has completely lost touch with reality.

'It's a labral tear,' he says of his injury. 'A kind of separation of the shoulder. I've had it for years and I've probably aggravated it by jumping around on Bond movies. I've had it fixed now. It wasn't an essential operation but if I don't do it now, I could do something on the next movie and rip it out of its socket. It's just a pain in the arse, really, and it'll be a long wait before it heals properly.'

Daniel Craig had been a James Bond fan ever since his father, a publican in Cheshire, took him to see Live and Let Die at the cinema, but when he was first offered the part, in late 2004, he thought probably not. The producers, Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, didn't have a script yet and he was troubled by the smoothness and perfection of Bond. As an actor, he had always found it hard to get purchase on a character with no flaws. It was also true, although you won't hear it from Craig, that the Bond films had been getting sillier and more gimmick-laden for years. After the first round of negotiations, he told the producers to forget it, and went off to play a South African-Jewish assassin for Steven Spielberg in Munich.
advertisement

Nearly a year later, Craig read the script for Casino Royale and absolutely loved it. The Bond franchise had been rebooted, taken back to the beginning, stripped of its gloss and gimmickry, and 007 had become a more flawed character. Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer and director of Crash, had done the final rewrite and 'sprinkled it with his magic dust', as Craig puts it. But still he was reluctant. It wasn't the fame - how hard could that be? He was worried about being typecast and derailing the career he had worked so hard and carefully to assemble. He had a drink with Pierce Brosnan, the retiring Bond, who advised him to 'go for it', and finally he said yes because he didn't want to be drunk in the pub, aged 60, saying, 'I could have been James Bond.'

Craig officially accepted the role in October 2005 and there was an immediate, massive, hysterical outcry among Bond fans, who said he was too blond (all the other Bonds have been dark-haired), too short (5ft 11in), too coarse-looking and scruffy, too thespian with his National Theatre background and, at 38, too old. A venomous website, craignotbond.com, appeared on the internet, with doctored photographs showing that he looked like Vladimir Putin, and things got worse at the official unveiling.

Craig arrived at the press conference in a Royal Marines speedboat, wearing a beautiful Italian suit by Brioni, but the effect was ruined by the bulky orange lifejacket he was forced to wear and his white-knuckled grip on the boat rail. After thanking the Marines for 'scaring the shit out of me', he gave a brief, evasive and rather testy series of answers while chewing gum. He refused to say anything about his rumoured affairs with Kate Moss and Sienna Miller - as he still refuses - and one tabloid described him the next morning as James Bland.

Now, of course, the criticism seems very silly indeed, partly because Casino Royale was the highest-grossing Bond film ever, and mainly because no one could take their eyes off Craig. He was the most muscular 007 to date, having worked out like a beast for months with a personal trainer. He was also the first genuinely dangerous-looking Bond, and his edgy, kinetic performance turned him into an international superstar and sex symbol.

'Everything I brought to the character comes straight from Ian Fleming,' Craig says. 'I went back and read all the books and found that Bond's always in trouble, Bond's always fighting with his inner demons, and I thought, "There it is." The other thing I wanted to instil in the part, which also comes from the Flemings, is the idea that Bond has just come out of the service and he's a killer.' On the set of Munich, and again during the filming of Casino Royale, Craig met some real spies and assassins - Mossad agents and British secret service - who were there as advisers. 'You can see it in their eyes,' he says. 'You know immediately: oh, hello, he's a killer. There's a look. These guys walk into a room and very subtly they check the perimeters for an exit. That's the sort of thing I wanted.'

Of all the actors who have been 007, Craig is perhaps the least Bond-like off-screen, and he seems particularly unlike his own volatile, dangerous, coiled-spring interpretation of the character in Casino Royale. He is not as ripped and hulking for one thing, having lifted fewer weights and done a lot more running, and his face, so rough-hewn, proud and flinty on-screen, looks a little more tired and honest in the flesh.

He does have those extraordinary, piercing, glacial blue eyes but he keeps them turned down low most of the time, and listening to him talk, in a generic London accent that clings on to a few last syllables of his native Wirral - us is still uzz, one is wan - the hotel suite melts away and you hear a bloke chatting away over a pint in the pub, matey and affable, lively and intelligent, laughing a lot in a high-pitched chuckle, swearing exuberantly but keeping a very close watch on himself for signs of pretentiousness, luvviness or being too big for his boots.

'Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to get this right if I was American, because I'm deeply English,' he says. 'I'm always trying to self-mock. I'm always trying to put it down, or laugh it off, and you've got to be careful because false humility is not a great trait. It's kind of horrible, in fact, but it's also where I'm from. The tall poppy syndrome is a way of life in this country. We cut them down to size. On the one hand I f***ing hate it, because I get on the receiving end of it occasionally, but on the other hand that's how we are, and there's something I always liked about that. Of course I never thought I'd be a tall poppy myself. It was supposed to be some other tosser.'

He grew up mainly in Hoylake and West Kirby. His parents split up when he was four and he lived with his sister and his mother, who was an art teacher and a theatre-lover and encouraged his childhood interest in acting. He was in his first school play at the age of six and basically never stopped, going straight into the National Youth Theatre at 16, and then to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he honed his skills alongside Ewan McGregor, Alistair McGowan, Joseph Fiennes and others, graduating in 1991.

Quantum of Solace
Craig with the director Marc Forster, and fellow actors Mathieu Amalric and Olga Kurylenko

'There wasn't really a film industry in this country at that time,' Craig says. 'There was Merchant Ivory films and the floppy fringe, and I could never really pull it off - the Rupert Everett sneer, the Jeremy Irons thing. Luckily enough, I got into a good BBC television series, Our Friends in the North, and that was the springboard that got me into the National Theatre, where I played a lot of tortured parts, I suppose. People with problems: those are the ones I always find most interesting.'

He started getting a lot of television offers, but turned most of them down because he had always wanted to be a film actor. Then he started getting offers from Hollywood and he kept saying no because the parts were so cliched: 'Baddies mostly, literally with the twirling moustache. Lots of Nazis. Any sort of European villain with a slightly sinister accent. And I thought, "I can't. If I do this, that's it. I'll never get out of it."'

Mercifully, he was picked to play the artist Francis Bacon's gay, sado-masochistic, drug-addicted, alcoholic lover in John Maybury's Love is the Devil (1998), an arthouse film that he will always remember for the indignity of standing around naked, day after day, covered in surgical adhesive and red paint, and which he credits for launching his film career. He went on to play Paul Newman's vicious, spoilt son in Road to Perdition (2002); the brooding, philandering poet Ted Hughes opposite Gwyneth Paltrow's Sylvia Plath in Sylvia (2003); a suave, deluded drug dealer in the British gangster flick Layer Cake (2004) - always trying to pick interesting parts in quality films, and making one early blunder with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) opposite Angelina Jolie.

In Quantum of Solace, he is very much the same Bond, and the film is a direct sequel to Casino Royale. 'It begins right after the other one ended, with Bond interrogating Mr White,' he says. 'There was unfinished business and it was important to me that we finish it off. I mean, here's this guy who never loses, never loses at cards, never loses at life, he's always at the top of his game and will kill anybody who gets in his way. Along comes a woman who dupes him. As far as he's concerned, she was only in it for the money, for ulterior motives, and it just didn't seem right to leave that hanging there. So it's a revenge-led movie.'

Once again, Craig was heavily involved in the stunt sequences. 'I really think it makes a huge difference,' he says. 'No matter how good the CGI is, however good the double is, if the audience can see it's you, and they have that moment of, "F*** me, it's him!" they get more involved in the movie. So then it comes down to getting the balls to do it. I'm not good with heights. I'm not an athlete, although I've always enjoyed keeping fit in between bouts of minor alcoholism. So it's a big challenge. You're up there on top of a building and it's a long way down, and the explosion is going to go off, and you have to go on "Action" and look cool while you're doing it. I go for it because I'd be pissed off with myself in the future if I didn't. I'm 40 now and I can only give my body so much more punishment.'
Our Friends in the North

When people ask Daniel Craig about his hobbies, they usually want to know if he base-jumps or paraglides. 'I say, "F*** off! I read books, go to the pub and drink." I fulfil all those needs completely by doing these movies.' Bookwise, he is currently into Robert Fisk's 1,130-page War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, and in the pub he usually gets a window of about half an hour before it gets too crazy and he has to flee. He stays well away from nightclubs and the celebrity circuit, avoids the media unless he is promoting a film, and to guard against typecasting and simply to inhabit another character, he does other films between Bonds. After Casino Royale, he appeared as a washed-up movie star in Flashbacks of a Fool, the debut feature of his close friend Baillie Walsh. After Quantum of Solace wrapped, he went to Lithuania to make Defiance, Ed Zwick's Second World War drama about a Jewish partisan group who spent four years surviving in the last primeval forest wilderness in Europe.

'My life is basically a ramble,' Craig says. 'I live out of a suitcase, which I found tremendously exciting and romantic when I was younger, and is a pain in the arse now. I don't have any order in my life except when I'm working. Then I'm meticulous; I'm disciplined as much as I can be, because otherwise I can't do it.'

I ask him what discipline means in this context, so he takes me through a day on a Bond set: 'I get there early, eat breakfast, talk to the director. I hate staying in my trailer, so I'll stay on set all day and annoy people between takes. Then I go to the gym and work out for an hour. I rehearse my sequences for half an hour, I eat and go to bed. That's my life six days a week, six months a year. Maybe on Saturday night I'll get shitfaced and sleep it off on Sunday, because if I didn't I'd go insane.'

It is not clear how his girlfriend, an American film producer called Satsuki Mitchell, fits into this schedule and I have been warned not to ask him about his love life, which he considers strictly off-limits. Reportedly, they met on the set of The Jacket in 2005 and have been together ever since. Judging from his use of 'we' in reference to trips to Japan, Oregon, New York and London, the couple spend plenty of suitcase and hotel time together. There are rumours of imminent marriage, but Craig says only that he is looking forward to their next road trip together.

The intrusions on his privacy - the people who try to take photographs with camera phones when he's peeing in a restaurant lavatory, the tabloid reporters hounding his young teenage daughter from his failed marriage in the early 1990s, the commotion and hysteria that forms around him in public - these are the downsides of being James Bond. You think you know all about celebrity until it happens, he says, and then it's weirder and more intense than you ever imagined.

The best thing, he says, the biggest bonus of all, is going off on the exotic location shoots and seeing the world. When he starts talking about the places he has been to, his eyes glow and a tingle of wonder comes into the voice: 'Northern Chile is an extraordinary place, a shingled desert, high plains and nothingness, and we were up at 10,000 feet and the sky is beyond big. It's horizon to horizon, uninterrupted, and the stars - just a complete canopy of stars, and you can watch them move over as the night goes on.'

In Italy, the Bond cast had a private viewing of the Sistine Chapel. It was very early in the morning and he was feeling a little thick-headed as he struggled out of bed but then it struck him with full force: my God, this will never happen again. In Panama they went to Colón on the Caribbean side, which doubles as Haiti in Quantum of Solace. 'It's an incredibly poor city with all this crumbling deco architecture and no running water, and shit running in the streets, gunfire going off at night, and all the kids are wearing perfectly pressed white clothing - I don't know how they do it,' he says. 'The first night we were there a thousand people came out with their families. I got out of the car and they all said, "James Bond!" It was the last place on earth I was expecting it.' Normally hundreds of flashes go off in these situations but in Colón the people were too poor to afford cameras.

'I'd love to travel like Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman, just get on a motorbike and take off, but unfortunately I've become a bit of a commodity and I've got security guys around me most of the time,' he says. 'I do try to slip the net as much as I can and get out and see places. Otherwise you're getting the big gate up and hiding behind it and losing touch with reality. I say that but actually I think by doing Bond I've lost touch with reality quite a lot.'

The real danger, he says, is losing touch with himself. 'Fortunately I've got a great family and really close friends and they really give me a hard time, and I encourage them to do so, because otherwise I will disappear up my own arse. I mean, six months a year, six days a week, all you're doing is Bond, all you're talking about is Bond. For nearly three months before that, you're doing pre-production on Bond, and when the movie comes out, you're doing this, the promotion.'

From London, he goes to Moscow, Scandinavia, the US, back to London for the premiere, then seven premieres in seven European capitals in seven days, back to America and on to Australia and Japan. He sincerely hopes the film will be a success, because he wants to do more of them, but when his tour of duty is over, he will be out on the open road, driving one-armed if his shoulder isn't healed, putting as many miles between himself and James Bond as possible.
advertisement

# 'Quantum of Solace' is released on October 31

Источник

Hannah Rand

November 15, 2008 12:00am

Take a Hollywood actor and add water. Mix in revealing swimmers and a hot body, and you have a ticket to instant international fame.
It worked in 1962 for a bikini-clad Ursula Andress in Dr No, and when Daniel Craig did it again in 2006, strutting out of the Caribbean surf in his first Bond film, Casino Royale, he, too, raised heart rates all over the world.

Forget his impressive acting pedigree, earned through stints at the UK's National Youth Theatre and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and his role in the gritty British TV drama Our Friends in the North. Cast aside the cinematic CV that boasts such challenging roles as a cold-blooded killer in Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition; a builder who gives a grandmother her first orgasm in The Mother; the brooding British poet Ted Hughes in Sylvia; a violent drug dealer in Layer Cake; and a Mossad assassin in Steven Spielberg's Munich. What we wanted all along was Daniel Craig in Speedos.

Craig is drier - and wearing more - when we meet in the hospitality suite of London's hip Soho Hotel. He looks older, too - or 'craggy', as he was described on a recent chat show - with deepish lines etched on his face. His skin is tanned enough to make those azure-coloured eyes stand out - yes, they really are that blue - and his sandy hair looks as though it would put up a fight if approached by a comb. When he smiles, or unconsciously slips into Bond's pouting broodiness, the 007 vigour comes to life.

If the biceps aren't bulging out his black polo shirt as much as they do in the movie, it's because Craig, 40, has been resting, unable to train due to injury. He greets me with a gentile shake of his left hand, his right resting in a sling following a recent shoulder operation. He doesn't know if the damage was sustained during stunt scenes in Casino Royale or the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace, but he's taking this time away from the set to recuperate. "It would've been better if it had been broken, now all the tendons have to knit together," he says, downplaying what must be a painful injury.

The time off seems to be working wonders because the actor - who's known for being a bit of an "arse" (to borrow his own phrase) when it comes to media meetings - is in a jovial mood. Previous interviewers have described him as aloof and a bit sarcastic, but when I asked a publicist how the

day was going, she replied over-breezily (and with a note of relief), "He's great, very lively." Indeed, today Craig is polite and charming.

It's not surprising the actor has been defensive in the past. Blond, less than six foot and too much of a thespian lefty to fill the traditional Bond shoes, Craig's head was on a stick before he'd even started filming Casino Royale. Newspapers hustled him, labelling him 'James Bland' and 'Superwimp'. One tabloid even described how he couldn't drive the spy's classic Aston Martin DB5 because he was more accustomed to driving an automatic. "Bond's license to squeal: 007 wuss Dan can't even change gears," ran the headline.

But the critics were soon silenced when Casino Royale became one of the most successful Bond films ever made, bringing in US$594 million worldwide at the box office and receiving rave reviews from even the most highbrow of judges.

Still, the naysayers can't resist having a dig at Bond movie No 22, Quantum of Solace - for the tenuous name, which, taken from a short story by Bond creator Ian Fleming, refers to the amount of comfort between two people. The first direct sequel, the film picks up where Casino Royale ended; after the death of Bond's love, Vesper Lynd, who killed herself to protect him from a shadowy, unscrupulous organisation. But whatever the premise or title, no critic can find fault with Craig's performance. He makes a sensational 007.

Does the success of Casino Royale mean he can be more relaxed now? "Well, yes. But it's a ridiculous position, because there was huge pressure on the first one, as it was doomed," he says, dramatically dragging out the vowels for emphasis. "This time, we've had so much success, it's like, where do we go now? But it's a very high-class problem." Which means he has little to complain about, then.

But that doesn't mean Craig's about to rest on his laurels. "Success brings great things, but it also brings a false sense of security. I try to be as realistic as I can, because if this film is not a success, they might think twice about doing another one with me, so I have to keep things in perspective."

It must be difficult to walk that fine line between pinching himself at having such luck and becoming the kind of actor who travels with an entourage as big as his inlfated his ego. "Actors have a tendency - and this is just a general term - to disappear up their own arses if they're not careful," he agrees. "And I'm just as guilty as any other actor if I'm not wary. I have to be very careful of that."

And how, exactly, does he prevent himself from disappearing up the proverbial? "Same as anyone, I suppose," he says. "I hang out with friends and family who just take the p*ss out of me and treat me like a normal human being."

It would be pretty easy to fall into the trap of believing your own hype if, like Craig, you were suddenly plucked from the relative obscurity of art-house cinema to be named the 2006 Durex World's Sexiest Man. I tell him about a tea towel I recently spotted in a department store that was printed with: "I had a really nice dream last night about Daniel Craig." He fires back, "There you go, someone's wiping their dishes on me now," letting out an appealingly dorky laugh.

Joking aside, Craig is philosophical about the notion of being every housewife's fantasy. "Oh, well, it's nice, but it can probably go the other way. I have to sort of ignore that as well, really. It's difficult because if it's thrust in your face, you can't ignore it. But" he pauses, umming and ahhing as he searches for the right words. "It's a pleasure to be on a tea towel," he concludes graciously.

The actor's background is distinctly unglamorous. He grew up in Liverpool, England, in the 1970s and 1980s - a time when the working class city was, he says, "a sh*t hole. No one would argue with me (about that). It was sort of the lowest of the low, but now it's fantastic. It's beautiful as long as the sun is shining. I miss it. I'm a Liverpool (Football Club) supporter and I'm desperately trying to see some games up there."

Picturing Craig singing along to football songs at a game, I can't help thinking he might purposely come across as cantankerous because he wants to underplay his success and avoid the limelight. He certainly misses the easiness of a non-celebrity life. He says he can't go to his local in London without attracting so much attention he has to leave after a couple of pints (he jokes around, mimicking the clumsiness of someone trying to take a surreptitious picture with their camera phone).

He rarely attends public events and says he never courts attention. "I shy away from doing press when I'm not working - I want to live my life. But when I'm working, it's very important to come out and talk about what I've done. I've just spent nine months of my life making a movie and it would be useless if I weren't here to talk about it."

Craig is less verbose about his personal life. He's been linked to Sienna Miller and Kate Moss, who he says is just a friend, and only recently started making public appearances accompanied by his girlfriend of three years, Satsuki Mitchell, a film producer he met on the set of The Jacket in 2005. He's rumoured to have popped the question while filming Quantum in Panama earlier this year and she's since been spotted wearing some impressive Cartier bling.

In the same way that he doesn't invite speculation, he's also less than impressed when others talk about his success. When I mention that a former drama teacher has been quoted in a newspaper, talking about his comedic talents at school, he bristles and that steely defence appears for the first time. "That was a long time ago," he says, protectively batting away the question.

Quantum's German director, Marc Forster, thinks it's this vulnerability that makes Craig so great for the coveted spy role. "He humanised the character," he says, "and made him three-dimensional. Bond was never like that. This is the first time we can identify with the character and think, he's a bit like me. That's the interesting part."

Forster says he'd never have agreed to be part of Quantum if it hadn't been for Craig, who pushed for him to direct the film ("Because of him, I said yes"). It's his first big action movie and, like Craig, his previous works have been mostly intellectual, gritty types, such as The Kite Runner and Monster's Ball, and quirky comedy, such as Stranger Than Fiction.

"I think it's important that Bond is an anti-hero; that he has this shadow," says Forster of the revived character. "It's interesting to dive into his pain, because I don't think one should glorify an assassin. A character who kills other people is dark, should be dark, and can't be at peace with himself. He's isolated and is really not a happy person."

Then again, I hazard, it's hard not to love the side of Bond that shags and shoots his way around the parameters of morality. "He still has that," says Forster. "But that's his escape and you have to have both sides - Daniel brought this to Bond."

Quantum of Solace has plenty of classic 007 moments, including boat chases, explosions and a hot girl at the wheel. We also see more MI6 gadgets than in Casino Royale. "I wanted to go deeper into Bond's emotional world but, at the same time, I didn't want to take myself too seriously. It was important to have humour and to have some fun with it," says Forster. Hence the Goldfinger moment when Agent Fields (played by Gemma Arterton of RocknRolla) is found covered in an oil slick that's reminiscent of the 1964 film's scene in which Shirley Eaton's character suffers 24-carat skin suffocation.

Craig also downplays his reportedly cerebral approach to Bond. "I read the books and thought, he's really dark and in turmoil, and that's where we'll start, but I don't think there's a lot to analyse. I mean, it's James Bond," says the actor. "Anyway, I'm so far from being an intellectual - I can't spell 'intellectual', so I'm not in a position to start intellectualising anything."

Purists shouldn't worry about any change in Bond's reputation for being a Casanova, either. He makes a move on Arterton's government agent, and the obligatory arse-kicking Bond girl, played by Ukranian model-turned-actor Olga Kurylenko. This means more scenes of Craig in next to nothing. In fact, we see more of his body than the girls'.

"I don't make any apologies for Bond. I hope he retains some of his misogyny, because that makes him interesting," says Craig.

At least Bond has the formidable M, played by Dame Judi Dench, to keep him in check. "She's there to slap him down," he agrees. "If he does behave in that way and you have a very strong female lead, she can say, 'What the f*ck's that about?'"

Cast and crew travelled to six countries, filming in 22 locations - a record for the franchise. "Panama was amazing," he says. "The people were so friendly and great to work with. Chile was fantastic because we were in the middle of a desert. And Sienna They were all great. The travelling is a big bonus."

Having done most of his own stunts, Craig says that, physically, Casino Royale was "a walk in the park" compared to Quantum. This time, his training involved aerial dogfighting, boxing, running, sky diving and stunt driving cars and boats. He sliced the top off a finger in rehearsals and his damaged shoulder will take a while to heal. "I had to go to New York to have an operation. I returned two days ago and have the media chasing me around town, trying to find out how I broke my arm. If they catch up with me, I'll tell them it was a fishing accident.

"No, it's more likely that I have a hangnail," he laughs, playing down his macho-ness and flashing a smile that illuminates his entire face.

And with that, all the dynamism of Bond comes to life again. If only he were wearing Speedos. SM

Quantum of Solace is in cinemas Wednesday.

Источник: Sunday Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24658229-2902,00.html

November 20, 2008 12:00am

JAMES Bond star Daniel Craig explains why, this time out in Quantum of Solace, he's happy to let the stuntmen do the action and the girls do the talking.

Actors who do their own stunts are a dime a dozen.

If you believe the publicity malarky you'd be under the impression there's no such thing as a stuntman.

But Daniel Craig is more than happy to acknowledge the existence of stuntmen, especially since one of them came close to giving his life for his art during the shooting of Craig's latest James Bond chapter, Quantum of Solace.

Greek stuntman Aris Comninos was left in a coma after crashing a car into a wall.

"It sobers you up. It sobered everybody up. But it was a freak accident. The only thing -- and genuinely the only thing -- that matters is he's made a full recovery, but everyone was shaken up," Craig says.

But the actor denies it made him think twice about doing so many of his own stunts.

"I've spoken to the stuntmen at length about it and it's what they do, it's what we do. Without it we don't have a Bond movie. So there's an element of risk, but there's an element of risk when you walk out the front door.

"I had eight stitches in my face from doing something incredibly simple. However, for the rest of the shoot I was jumping off towers, driving motor boats, doing all these things we'd rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed to get them to the most exciting place, but also the safest place, and we were absolutely fine. It was just a really, really unlucky situation."

This is Craig's second worldwide publicity tour for a Bond film after his first, Casino Royale, in 2006. Now, as then, he's unfailingly polite, self-deprecating and direct, yet somehow he seems less buoyant this time around.

But it's a charge he denies, ever conscious of the fact there's nothing less interesting than the gripes of a millionaire actor.

"I don't think it's possible to be over something like this," he says, gesturing to the panoramic view of Sydney Harbour behind him. "If I was over this I'd be over just about everything.

"We have potentially a very successful movie. And we're near the end and I can take a rest and shut up for while. I'm sick of the sound of my own voice."

For a while, the sound of Craig's voice, the shape of his ears, the colour of his hair, were all deemed things to be sick of by the aggressive UK press.

If Casino Royale killed off that coverage, Quantum of Solace has hammered the nail into the coffin and tossed dirt on the lid.

The film is already an international hit and looks like exceeding the popularity of its predecessor. Solace had the biggest US opening in the history of the 22-film franchise, taking $109 million this weekend. (Casino Royale earned $61 million on its opening weekend).

But Craig says vindication is not his to claim.

"Not even slightly, genuinely," he says. "I put it to bed because, win or lose, against those feelings none of it's relevant. It does me no good. I couldn't respond then and I can't respond now.

"All the stuff that happened last time was partially expected. The thing to do is stay away from it and just get on with making the film."

Craig's Bond is famously harder, tougher and grimier than his previous incarnations, but though Craig concedes he still has a touch of misogyny, if such a thing is possible, he's still a new man.

"I think we've moved on. The idea of who James Bond was in the '50s and who men were in the '50s has disappeared.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with playing around with it. His misogyny is there, but if you put interesting, strong characters in front of him, he'll respond to it. That reaction is interesting and I like to play around with that.

"One of the great things about having Judi (Dench) play M is there's a balance there, a balancing of his behaviour. She kind of gives the yin and the yang."

He interrupts himself.

"I didn't do that. I didn't say yin and yang, did I? Yes, I did," he says sheepishly, with the kind of self-awareness rarely seen in an American actor, before continuing.

"If he's going to have relationships with women off the cuff, which is potentially what Bond does -- he meets somebody, there's a passionate moment and they get into bed with each other -- there's nothing wrong with that, it's great.

"But if it's two equal characters who fight or react to each other, it's much sexier. And if he happens to be misogynistic and gets slapped down, I think that's interesting. But Ian Fleming's men are few and far between now, thank goodness."

Unlike some of his predecessors, Daniel Craig's resume outside the Bond films features a sizeable proportion of interesting and acclaimed work.

He starred in Stephen Spielberg's Munich opposite Eric Bana and in Matthew Vaughn's cracking directorial debut, the gangster flick Layer Cake. He played a man who has an affair with a grandmother in The Mother and recently finished the World War II resistance film Defiance, opposite Liev Schreiber and South Australian newcomer Mia Wasikowska (Suburban Mayhem, September and the HBO series In Treatment).

Craig says his recent choices don't reflect a desire to get as far from James Bond as possible between outings.

"It's nothing as cynical as that. The script (for Defiance) arrived and I'd never heard of this story. There was potential to get it done in the time that we had, so I just wanted to do it. Whatever the result of the movie, this story deserves to be told."

The film, being prepped for an Oscar campaign, is the true story of two Russian brothers who escape the Germans and live out the war in the forest along with an ever-growing band of escapees.

Craig was also tapped to play Lord Asriel in last year's The Golden Compass, opposite Nicole Kidman. The film became mired in controversy when the Catholic Church called for a boycott, citing author Philip Pullman's anti-Catholic leanings.

Meanwhile, others claimed studio New Line had watered down Pullman's intentions by removing obvious references to church-like organisations from the script.

Regardless, the film wasn't enough of a success to get a guarantee the two subsequent books in the series would be filmed, and it became one of the first victims of the economic downturn when they were canned.

Craig is disappointed it won't become his second franchise.

"The movie was really rather good and a lot better than it could have been. It's a shame we can't go on and explore the rest of the books because I still feel they are some of the best children's literature ever written. It would be great to see them on the screen," he says.

He may not influence the decision to go ahead with or can a multi-million-dollar project, but he is in a position to help a mate with more modest needs.

Craig recently filmed Flashbacks of a Fool for old friend and director Baillie Walsh, who wrote it about seven years ago. Walsh was able to call on the help of his newly minted movie-star pal post Bond.

"It's definitely something I'd like to pursue, encouraging -- don't I sound magnanimous -- encouraging people to . . . I get a huge kick out of getting a group of people together to make some art. It's a very simple equation. If you can get the money together -- and that's where I really come in, people think potentially we can make some money with him -- you have to use it productively."

Craig also called on Walsh to direct him in a Sony advertisement tied into Quantum of Solace. He concedes the product placement in the last flick was clunky at best.

"We worked on it," he says dryly.

"I have no choice about them using my image because it's part of the deal. Sony is a good product so it's not as if it's something else, but without these product placements we couldn't make the movie. I learned that very quickly.

"That's how we sell and make the movie, but I have no choice about a number of things so I thought, why not get involved?

"Baillie Walsh is a fantastic video and commercial director. I said, 'Let's try to make something good'. Sony was really co-operative, so it became a nice project to tack on to the end of the movie.

"We just thought if we're going to do it, let's do it, and there was lots of talk about making it like a Bond movie with cars and things, but Baillie was 'Forget it -- we have to make something that stands alone'."

In Walsh's Flashbacks of a Fool Craig plays a washed-up Hollywood star who looks back at a tragedy that caused him to leave his love and his home.

A cautionary tale?

Craig laughs.

"It's not deeply set in reality. It's just an idea about someone who's screwed up his life and has the money to screw it up even further, who is very wealthy and doing nothing with his life. There's a pitfall there if you're not careful."

Craig concedes he's lucky his widespread fame came to him late in life. He already had one short-lived marriage (to actor Fiona Loudon) and has a 16-year-old daughter he prefers to keep out of the spotlight.

His body of work pre-Bond was admired and known by a select few, but wouldn't have seen him bothered in the supermarket.

Today he has the kind of fame it takes every ounce of maturity to deal with.

"I'd have screwed it up completely. Quite happily screwed it up," he says when asked how he'd have dealt with it had it come to him as a teenager. But then he catches himself and makes a very unBond admission.

"Actually, I don't know. I've always been sensible."

Quantum of Solace is now showing.

http://www.news.com.au/heralds....00.html

'Defiance' Star Daniel Craig Insists He's Not A Funny GuyThe stoic Brit prefers movies like his new war drama, which hits theaters January 16.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Tami Katzoff

If you think the films Daniel Craig stars in are a bit glum, you may be right. The newest James Bond admits he's really not a lighthearted, romantic-comedy kind of guy. As he recently told MTV News, he's just not a funny guy.

The actor will next be seen January 16 in "Defiance," a film about Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Poland who seek refuge with Russian resistance fighters, a role that suits the stoic Brit just fine.

"I'm not a funny man," he said. "That's not who I am."

"Defiance" may not have given Craig the opportunity to show the world his comedic chops (or lack thereof), but it did open his eyes and help him learn about the Nazi resistance movement of World War II.

"I knew there was some resistance," he explained. "I'd read about pockets of resistance, but never in any detail. So when this came along, I was astounded. Once I'd read the book, learning more about it and learning how successful they were, [it] was inspiring."

The film also presented the challenge of playing a character based on an actual person. And working with co-star Jeffrey Wright — who gave convincing performances as Colin Powell in "W.," Jean-Michel Basquiat in "Basquiat" and Muddy Waters in "Cadillac Records" — allowed him to learn a thing or two.

"There is a respect, but at a certain stage, you have to relax about it and just say, 'This is my interpretation,' " he said. "You make judgments and you make assessments. And when you go to shoot it, you just say, 'This is me.' Jeffrey's particularly good at it, though."

отсюда

Daniel Craig says he now has a “blank page” as James Bond.
The UK-born actor believes the next installment of the spy film franchise could go in a completely new direction.
Daniel said: “I genuinely think we’ve got a blank page now. We started something with ‘Casino Royale’ and wrapped it up with ‘Quantum of Solace’ - we’re ready to begin again and do what we want.”
Daniel also admits he was surprised by the success of ‘Casino Royale’ - his debut performance as James Bond.
“Everyone thought it was going to be s**t. So when it wasn’t, they were all just completely surprised. I think that ‘Quantum of Solace’ is as good a movie as ‘Casino Royale’ The difference is that last time people were surprised by the fact they enjoyed it,” the 40-year-old actor said.
He also revealed portraying the British spy allows him to act out a mid-life crisis, rather than actually having one.
Daniel explained: “I’m having a mid-life crisis as they go, I’m driving around in an Aston Martin and wearing sharp suits and sort of going around with beautiful girls. I’m acting my mid-life crisis out on movies.”

отсюда

Daniel Craig has expanded on his earlier comments about Bond 23 as well as looking back on the success of "Quantum of Solace" in a new interview with The Times.

At the time of the interview, "Quantum" had just surpassed the $500m mark at the worldwide box-office. "Although I wouldn’t know $500m if it sat on my face," Craig said. "But it would probably be quite nice if it sat on my face. I know that, when it comes down to it, these films are about box office, but the moment I start thinking about the figures, I’ll be stuffed – though maybe I won’t be saying that in a year’s time, when I’ve spent everything."

Repeating the success of "Casino Royale" was no mean feat, either. "The first film was a huge punt, although I think if it had failed miserably, I could have walked away with my head held high and said, ‘Well, I gave it a go.’ But the fact was that it wasn’t", Craig said. "It was a success, and in a way that nobody could have predicted. Quantum was about keeping it interesting, relevant, and the only way I could think about doing that was just to throw myself headlong into it. So I know the work we put in. We didn’t have a complete script, so Marc Forster and I had to batter it into shape, to find the story we wanted to tell."

When asked whether he was bothered about "Quantum" being criticised for being too dark, he said: "Well, I nicked a lot of the ideas about who Bond is from Ian Fleming. But the point is, we did the movie we had to do to finish the story off, and comedy and lightness weren’t relevant. This was a story about loyalty, about friendship, about who you can trust. Gag-writing wasn’t at the top of the list."

Bond 23
Backing up his earlier comments that the writing process on Bond 23 can start with a clean slate now the story-arc from "Casino Royale" has been wrapped up, Craig said that the tone could be completely different too. "I love the idea of putting Moneypenny in the film," he said "I’m dead keen to do it. And Q. But I work from the premise that there are millions and millions of people out there who never saw one of the earlier Bond movies. So they don’t understand the martini gag. Or the Moneypenny gag, which is a gag - it had ceased to be a character. So, let’s find out who she is. We can have fun doing that. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m up for a submarine base, as long as the gag works. The problem is that Austin Powers screwed everything up. He exploded the genre. Did I just say that? I did."

No release date has been announced for Bond 23, with fans and experts unsure whether it will be 2010 or 2011. Starting the screenplay in January (as per producer Michael G. Wilson's comments last month) could mean that Bond 23 hits the traditional November slot in 2010. The wrinkle to the usual two-year timeline could be the hand-over from Sony back to MGM, pushing the release to 2011.

отсюда