WHEN Daniel Craig was first approached to play James Bond he wasn’t absolutely certain that he wanted the job.
To 90% of actors - to 99% of the male population of Britain, for that matter - such uncertainty might appear utterly crazy.
As an actor, why wouldn’t you want to take on the most prestigious job in the movies, a role that carries with it glamour, fame and a huge pay packet?
Daniel’s concerns were actually rather admirable, however.
“I didn’t want to be typecast by the role, I didn’t want to be denied the chance to play other parts by being Bond,” he said at the time.
As we all know, the Chester-born actor eventually put aside his concerns to take on the role of 007 and his latest part, in the movie FLASHBACKS OF A FOOL, is proof that typecasting isn’t remotely a problem for a man who is now halfway through filming his second Bond movie.
Pictured in Flashbacks (above), in some ways the film is pretty much the polar opposite of a Bond movie.
It’s the story of Joe Scott (Craig), a fading Hollywood star, instantly recognisable to the public, whose hedonistic lifestyle of sex, drugs and celebrity has taken its toll. Handsome even in his drug-addled 40s, he leads a directionless, lonely life in his opulent Malibu mansion while outside the tide of public opinion has turned firmly against him. Only when confronted by tragedy is he forced to face up to the ghosts of his past.
In the sense that it focuses on the downside of glamour - and is therefore the exact opposite of the kind of high life presented to audiences in Bond movies - it’s an interesting choice of movie for Daniel.
So why did he agree to play Joe Scott?
“Because I liked the script and, yes, because it is far removed from Bond and all that goes with it,” he says.
“It is also an interesting and I think very moving story.”
The film is told partly in flashback, with the audience returned to 1970s England and small town life, set to the beat of Roxy Music and Bowie.
To an extent, it’s a rites of passage movie with Joe (played by Harry Eden in the flashbacks) seen in a tiny British seaside community and laying the foundations for the Hollywood dream he goes on to experience.
His budding sexuality, his boyhood camaraderie, the untoward advances of a voluptuous older woman and his teenage actions lead to unforeseen, tragic consequences which will ultimately force him to flee in search of a new life.
Daniel is quick to point out that it is no sense autobiographical, that it was simply a story which captured his imagination.
“We are all, to a lesser or greater extent, influenced by our pasts, our actions in the here and now determined by what happened in our childhoods and in our teens,” he says.
“And while nothing as dramatic as happens to Joe happened to me, I accept that we don’t just arrive in the present without being pushed there.”
In Daniel’s case, it was almost literally a push, from his mother, towards The National Youth Theatre in London when, as a 16-year-old, he was meandering a bit in life. It was this push that turned him on to a career in acting.
One can draw fairly accurate parallels between Daniel and David Tennant: both were journeymen actors with fine reputations but little in the way of star appeal until they took on the roles of 007 and Dr Who respectively.
Both have subsequently been reluctant stars, the world in general learning little about the private lives of either man, as they have made the two iconic parts their own.
What is known about 40-year-old Daniel is that he has a 15-year-old daughter, Ella, from a previous relationship and he is currently in a relationship with Japanese/American film-maker Satsuki Mitchell. He has an older sister, parents who split up when he was young - and a passion for a quiet pint.
“Although,” he admits, “a ‘quiet’ beer is not always possible these days. It’s one of the few drawbacks of being James Bond - I simply can’t find a quiet corner in a pub and drink a pint of beer any more.
“But that - I hardly need tell you - is a pretty small price to pay for the enjoyment I get from my work.”
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