Q: So I heard there was a swear box on the set, that you had to pay for every time you swear.
Daniel Craig: Worth the money. Every penny. Cost me a lot of money, but it was good.

Q: How much did you have to pay?
Daniel Craig: I don't know.. I mean, a small fortune. It became a bit of a joke after a while, but I just um, you know. Sometimes you'd be on set and you wouldn't know it that's the trouble. And then you'd just say "It's another pound!". [laughter]

Q: What was it usually? Was it f- or what? [laughter]
Daniel Craig: Please! Please! Let's say we lower the tone!

Q: What was it like working with the children?
Daniel Craig: I find it, you know, I get a kick out of it, because... You've got to work very hard and you've got to try and keep them enthused because it's a long day and their energy levels go down. But Dakota learned very quickly... and I teased her all the time you know, just to try to keep her energy levels going so that we can bounce off each other a bit. It was a real pleasure, I don't see where the problem lies really. It's quite easy, just watch them.

HisDarkMaterials.org: Did being such a fan of the books, and I'm sure also of the character, help you or hinder you sometimes?
Daniel Craig: No, no. If you read the books, the back story of Lord Asriel and everybody, it's all very clearly set out, so in fact that was my starting point, that's how I got into it, that's the reason I wanted to do the film anyway.

Q: [inaudible] Was there any kind of reluctance to take the part since Asriel has so little screen time?
Daniel Craig: It didn't bother me at all... I mean, it sounds like I've got some sort of grand plan, but I didn't- it just literally was a happy accident that it came up. The film's not about me-

Q: [interrupts] They'll look for you in the next film though?
Daniel Craig: Yes I may well be in the next one, because we've left a lot of the story untold, so we have to. But I'm not the star of these movies; Dakota is the star of these movies, and the animals that star in these movies...

Q: [interrupts] Is there a time frame?
Daniel Craig: Well if we can squeeze it in, we'll do it. This is one film, I've done three films this year, including this, so it's finding time to do things.

Q: Is part of the reason why you did this movie is because your daughter can see it?
Daniel Craig: Not really, no. She comes to see a few of my films, but that wasn't a binding reason.

Q: Does she have any preferences though? Like, 'I don't like bond I like THIS better...'?
Daniel Craig: That's a conversation between me and her. I'd rather keep my daughter out of any questions, that nobody's business except mine and hers.

Q: The dæmons play a huge part in the film, how much of a challenge was it to work with them?
Daniel Craig: Well I was lucky, my dæmon was a snow leopard, and as long as we left enough space, then, well that does the talking... Nicole had much more to do, she's got to interact with it, she had to have, as Dakota had to do, is a green blob, that you kind of, have to, you know, do things with. But I kind lucked out really, it just follows me around and sits down and purrs, and Christian Scott Thomas did the voice for it so it sort of, enough said really, it was just, simple.

Q: Being a fan of the books, was there a particular scene or character you were really looking forward to seeing on the big screen?
Daniel Craig: Well, in the books, the bears is going to be the obvious answer, and I think that they're, they're, well when I saw it the other day, when I saw it projected for the first time with the soundtrack and special effects, I got a big thrill out of seeing the bear fight. You know, the state of the technology has only really just happened- the movie couldn't have been made five years ago. And if we do go again, then there another two movies to be made out of this, and it has to just get better and better. If you look at Pantalaimon, who is Lyra's dæmon, I mean, the characterization is fantastic, that's what makes the movie really stand out.

Q: Are you comfortable now with your level of fame, since Bond and the whole sex symbol, image...
Daniel Craig: I live with it. [laughter...] It didn't last very long...

Q: Did you have a sense of humor about it?
Daniel Craig: [sarcastic] No I was very, very serious about it. [laughter] And I'm having therapy. But no, it's fine really, it's a fickle business, so I don't take it too seriously.

Q: Is there a list that you would like to be number one on? I mean, if you don't care about the other lists, like being sexiest man and everything, is there a list you would like to be number one on?
Daniel Craig: Erm... Off hand I can't think of a cleaver answer, so I won't make one... [laughter]

HisDarkMaterials.org: Did the parts that you played in the movie, while you're battling in switzerland... Did it comfort you in a sense that you didn't have to stand in front of a green screen?
Daniel Craig: Yea well there was a bit of that, there was an arctic bit when you're just standing on a big expanse of snow- but if you've ever stood in those places, then that's all it really looks like. But it was very important in this film that the design of the film crossed over and married into the special effects, so people like Dennis Gassner and Ruth Myers the costume designer, it was really important that they got their part right so we walked onto sets that were full and whole. The only thing that wasn't there were the animals and occasionally there'd be some backdrops that would be put in later. So it wasn't such a huge leap, the only thing you had to do, and I didn't have to do a lot, was talk directly with animals...

Q: In terms of the way your career has gone in the past several years, because it's gone through the roof... Have you got time to sit back and just take stock at what's happened to your career and you life for the last couple of years?
Daniel Craig: The weird thing is, I just have to plan my life in a different way and I'm just busier than I've ever been, and I'm happy about that. I don't think any actor likes to be out of work, but I've had to make time for things like, life, and family and friends. You have to make time and I have to make time and go an visit... you can loose touch, and I don't want to loose touch, because they're the most important things to me. You know a holiday would be nice, but Christmas is coming, so that'll be good.

Q: Do you think, that after Bond, you've been offered something that's after-bondish, because before that you have a very interesting movie like The Jacket, and some voices...
Daniel Craig: Well I've done, this is the third movie I've done this year, this is the first I start after the end of Bond, and it's obiovusly not a huge commitment, it was a relatively short movie at the time, but I produced a movie this year with my best friend and a bunch of people who I've wanted to work with for quite a while, which is a much smaller movie in South Africa, but with not very much money. It's just a great personal thing that I wanted to do. And I've just finished filming a movie with Ed Zwick out in Lithuania.

Q: Do you feel that Bond is allowing you to do that more than before?
Daniel Craig: Yes it has done, I think possibly I wouldn't have been able to make, get the movie made- this movie I've been trying to make for about five or six years, and I think hand on heart, Bond helped it this time.

Q: So it means that now you get the money for projects you wouldn't have done before?
Daniel Craig: It helped, it helped, but you've still got to go through the process. You've got to convince people to spend a lot of money on something, the films that are made like that are not necessarily the ones that appeal to everybody.

Q: You've been signed for four more Bond films?
Daniel Craig: That's what you said... I never said that. [laughter]

Q: You said that you thought about the first one eighteen months ago, before you finally said ‘I'm making this film’, so I thought this was quite a commitment to make?
Daniel Craig: Well, that's what's been said, it's not that it's not true, because I haven't signed up. What I've done is I've signed up on the next movie, after that we'll see. That's the way I'm doing it, and certainly it's not four more- that's the truth. It's certainly not four more.

HisDarkMaterials.org:In The Golden Compass you character seems to be a much nicer Lord Asriel than he is in the books, is this your interpretation, or how you were directed?
Daniel Craig: The thing that's missing from this book, which we did shoot, but didn't make the movie, was the bit where he stops being nice, which is right at hte very end of the book, and that didn't make the movie just because of timing and because there's so much to tell. But that'll have to be at the beginning of the next movie.

HisDarkMaterials.org: Also, not nice against Lyra because...?
Daniel Craig: She had bloody awful parents. That's basically it. They were the worst parents, they win the award for worst parents of the month award. But that's part of who Lyra is, I find that quite interesting, I mean, they're very tough and he comes across like that, but we kept that in, and he wouldn't have done, he twisted it.

Q: Do you not think that perhaps means that the film lost an integral part of the book? Because that does give you a different picture of Lord Asriel.
Daniel Craig: You could say that, but it's such a difficult part of the book and the story that we have to put it in the next movie. It will just probably become the beginning of the next movie.

Q: You started working on the new Bond last week, how is the preparation going?
Daniel Craig: All good, all good. Deceptively built up of plywood... [inaudible] ...which is spectacular Dennis Gazner who is actually the designer of this is now designing Bond.

Q: He's one to keep raising the bar...
Daniel Craig: We've got to, we've got to make it better, it's a pain in the arse. [laughter]

Q: Do you have a schedule for working out and dieting, and all that kind of thing?
Daniel Craig: I don't diet, I never diet. I work out, but I don't diet, because, life would just be awful... [laughter]

Q: When you look back at the work you've done in the past, and the stuff that you're doing now, do you feel that you're getting better as an actor?
Daniel Craig: Ah well I think something will come long, and just prove that completely wrong... it will, sometimes I don't know, I think I want to keep learning, I want to keep trying to do the best I can, but I'll do something and it'll just f*****g slide probably, and they'll go; ‘Oh, we lost it...’, but my feeling is that if I'm learning then it's working, and it constantly surprises me and I still get nervous about it, I get wound up about the whole thing, so I think that's to be quite a good thing.

Q: What's it like to work with Chris [Weitz], the director?
Daniel Craig: Very good, he's got an intricate knowledge of the books, and so had put in a huge amount of work before we started on where we had to go, because there were so many ideas within these stories that you have to convey them, well, it's impossible to convey all of them. But I think the essence is there, and if there are going to be two other films, then we've got that right, that part of it's right, we've got that story told. So now we can explore the rest of it in the other books.

Q: So collaborative, did you have the input, did you give him your ideas...?
Daniel Craig: I'm always trying to, weather anybody listens I don't know, but I always try and give my ideas and say what I think should be going on in the movie.

Q: There were not always the times when you could make a living from being an actor?
Daniel Craig: I've always done, actually...

Q: [interupts] But you waited tables?
Daniel Craig: Well that was before I went to drama school, I worked at tables from the age of sixteen, so that was just food money.

Q: What was the job you hated most before you were acting full time?
Daniel Craig: I used to count components in a factory, building early computers. I worked in the stock room, my job was to measure out parts because there were so many of them.

Q: What stage was that at during drama school?
Daniel Craig: That wasn't at drama school, that was before... Just after I left school.

Q: What's the biggest perk of where you are now?
Daniel Craig: One of them's the travel... I get to go to places that I've wanted to go to, but I'm going with work- so I'm not visiting places as a tourist, I'm visiting places in a working environment. I think that's on of the best things.

Q: But can you go around without be hassled?
Daniel Craig: Sometimes, yea, it's possible sometimes. It depends, we went to a city I haven't been to, I always try and go and to something, we've been lucky enough, I mean, we were in madrid, and we got a private viewing of the prada and got taken around. There is things that come up, you've just got to take them, it's a real privilege, so you've got to take advantage of them.

HisDarkMaterials.org: With quite a few people working on the movie, especially Alexandre Desplat and Chris Weitz, or Dennis Gassner, they've all got noticable little parts of the movie that they wrote in, which is there because they like it. For example Dennis Gassner had his moment with the Airship flying in over London.

Q: Do you have a little moment that was your input? That was your personal contribution?
Daniel Craig: No.[laughter] Not really... My relationship with Lyra, with Dakota, that was really what I wanted. I wanted there to be this toughness that he, he's not very fatherly... but he wants the best for her. I want that relationship to be something that spurs her along. And like I said, if you read the book, we did stuff that will be there. What he does, by taking roger away, it's the spur for her to go on and win the day.

HisDarkMaterials.org: So when you're bitching at her at Jordan, that was more fun to do than slapping Tartars with a rifle?
Daniel Craig: Yeah...

Q: What was it like working with Nicole?
Daniel Craig: It's great, I've worked with her a couple of times, and we get on really well... on the whole... [laughter]

Q: Is it nice working with people you've worked with in the past?
Daniel Craig: Completely, I've been doing this for quite a while now, so I tend to not notice just the actors I've worked with, but most of the technical people on the film, behind the cameras, I've worked with. So it just comes with experience and of being forty.

Q: I heard a story about when you were cast, you gave a call to Chris to see what was happening with the adaptation...
Daniel Craig: Not Chris, it was Ileen, one of the producers, she's a friend of mine, so I called her up to see what was going on.

Q: Were you the first person cast do you think?
Daniel Craig: Oh I don't know about that... Don't ask questions like that... [laughter]

Q: Is it a tremendous experience, turning forty?
Daniel Craig: I haven't done it yet... But I'll tell you when I do. [laughter]

Q: Are you worried about it?
Daniel Craig: Not at all... no.

Q: A lot of people have a crush on movie stars, do you remember the first one you had a crush on?
Daniel Craig: Charlotte Rampling. Q: Did you meet her? Daniel Craig: No, I haven't met her...

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