BEING JAMES BOND

that's one of the most prestigious roles in acting the movie world's most famous secret agent today after months of speculation the coveted job of being the next double 07 finally been unmasked and his name is craig daniel craig craig hundreds of actors were considered before he was chosen to play doubles he based off stiff competition from a host of stars including clive owen hugh jackman and colin farrell the 37 year old actor is the first blonde bond belonged bond are we ready for the first blonde bond he is extraordinarily different from what we've had before he's got a few more lines around the face it does look a little bit moody and frankly in the press conference he wasn't really that forthcoming somewhat lackluster reporters were distinctly underwhelmed by 007's official unveiling today knives out already for the new james bond fierce criticism james bland is how the mirror is it hasn't even started the role has he but they're being a bit harsh in the paper so we'd quite like to have your text and emails and phone calls on that as well the mirror says this morning that the new bond daniel craig lacks the charm and the charisma needed by 007. i must admit he doesn't exactly look the part but he might grow into the job [Music] good evening [Music] i always felt about daniel because i had seen a lot of things from our friends from the north and obviously enduring love with my mother and i always felt like whenever he was on the screen you couldn't watch anyone else you'd be interested in the same stuff but he just he's lit from within i remember the thing that really set me and i went it has to be him it was years before anything was in elizabeth him walking down the corridor and it was just like that is the most charismatic person i've ever seen on the screen so it was clear that he's a movie star and a great actor to boot now i think to put it into perspective at this time in daniel's career he wasn't thought of as a leaning man was not what people thought of they thought he was a great supporting actor and barbara and i could see that he was actually a leading man i had a career i mean as far as obviously i had a really successful career more successful than i ever thought i would be as an actor but i didn't have a cool persona you know pierce had done remington steel um roger had done the the saint it's like they've done these parts where people are going oh that's james i mean you know i'd done weird arty movies you know it was a harder sell it's like i don't do many smaller sophisticated roles i hadn't done any and i didn't really want to do it because i thought i wouldn't know what to do with it michael and i really wanted him we only wanted him the only problem was that he didn't want to do it the small detail is and you came into the office and i remember he walked in and i said to michael afterwards he wants to do it it was the funniest thing something about the way he had this he had was wearing french cuffs and they weren't done up and i just that thing somehow i don't know why it was i said he wants to do it and michael's quite you you think so i said yes he does he does and we were just determined to have him action and the money every penny of it the treasury has agreed to stake you in the game vesper do you hope you gave your parents help with that it was like there wasn't anyone else that kept freaking the studio out because we kept saying there is no one else we don't want anyone else they kept trying to get us to meet people i suppose all of these sort of like hurdles what i was saying to myself it's all right what's going to happen is i'm going to get the script i'm going to read it i'm going to go now thanks very much it's really nice because it's just like i mean ultimately that's going to be all the actor can do really is be kind of like oh you know you read the script and you go i don't like the script sorry little did i know that happens every time [Laughter] but it was casino royal the story was solid the script was really solid and it was just like i didn't imagine the scope of it i didn't imagine all the like the crane sequence and all of those sequels i had no idea about any of that but i knew the story stuck together you know it just it flew i remember calling you to tell you got the job yeah the phone went i went yes she just went over to you kiddo so i went in and i just grabbed a bottle of vodka and some vermouth and bought a cocktail shaker and went back to my apartment and started mixing myself vodka martinis you know that's not half bad that was the first bit of training that was my first bit of exercise i had to get a hangover for like three days and then i sent simon waterston yeah who's my trainer yeah and i literally met him with a rolly and a bacon sandwich that's his first memory of me i was like literally smoking a cigarette and eating a bacon sandwich i just said to him i said i want to change and he went okay so we did and it was seven days a week from then on the way you went into physical training for it i've never seen any actor do anything like that completely change your physique he said i have to look like i'm like i could do the role i mean it's kind of amazing and he trained like a olympic athlete it was just fantastic now after months of speculation the new james bond has finally been unmasked and his name is craig daniel craig today it was announced that brit actor daniel craig had beaten hundreds of competitors to grab the role but after four decades of tall dark and handsome are we really ready for the first blonde bond they're saying they wanted him well you always get press on bond you get so much attention but the lead up was just absolutely a roller coaster you have to say it does appear to be casting against type to put it kindly it's a bit rough around the edges i remember when we did the announcement with you going down the thames and already it started because we had the marines and they said he had to wear a life jacket always okay well he has to and then you know it started then oh bond you know wearing a life jacket how ridiculous and then i was grumpy in the press conference no you're never grumpy like someone asked a question i think that's a stupid question and by the way i dealt with it was just to be kind of bristly i'm not going to yes sorry but when the onslaught of press against him happened on casino royal it was brutal i mean it was way beyond any and it was because of what you know blonde bond like you know wasn't roger moore blonde i mean it was so irrational they hadn't seen him in the role it's just it was very very distressing when he was our member we were in the bahamas and he was on that crane sequence and he was killing himself on that crane sequence and and we would all come back and then it'd be all over the news all over the internet and it's just so irresponsible that people were manufacturing this stuff based on what based on a couple of teenagers who had started a an internet thing called craig not bond but all these news agencies were treating it as if it was like real news you know like it's an opinion of a couple of kids who hadn't seen a foot of film that the man had shot someone said you might want to go online there might be a bit of an issue like what i did i went online i went and stayed up all night and read everything because that's what happens if you do that and it was it was tough it was really really tough it was hate-filled [Music] and i woke up the following morning and i went it i know the film's going to be good it was just horrible the whole crew we were all just brimming with anger about it and and trying to act very casual around him but we were angry for him because it was so unfair everybody else was in a state about it everybody else was in this god god oh my god i'm so sorry happy they must be awful and like it's fine it's all good come on let's crack on with it because i knew we were doing something really special it's a tribute to daniel that he could look past it but a lot of people can't people people work on the film it affects the morale also i remember going back to the horrendous time in the bahamas we you know we were besieged with paparazzi i mean one guy was like buried himself in the sand sort of the night before we were gonna be on the beach i mean it was insane it was like you know crazy and i remember daniel coming out of the water and the whole crew going oh my god and that was probably the only time when a pap shot because it was a pack shot that broke that then of course changed the whole idea of you know daniel and what his bond was going to be like suddenly everybody went oh my god this is the guy the blonde guy cares who cares look at those tits [Laughter] the whole thing changed and then it was a whole different thing then he was suddenly the coolest guy on earth [Music] yes these two gave me a voice i mean i asked for it i mean i spoke to both of you i remember having this conversation i said if you're going to make make me do this i didn't say that i think you did but it was being allowed to discuss it you know martin and i we argued a lot on on it he didn't get he never got upset with me he got you know we used to have kind of you know these kind of he's in pitch battles on set they were never angry they were just like i don't agree with you i don't agree with you but somehow it elevated it it was allowing me to see if i saw something that i didn't think was right i would go and discuss it and if i was wrong i'd go okay if i'm wrong i'm wrong or wrong but if i thought i was right i felt like i had the power to be able to go i know i'm right about this and there's a couple of scenes in the movie which i'm really glad i spoke up about and they work but martin let me do [Music] that the shower scene which is i think one of the most beautiful scenes ever in a movie you know after that that fight in the hallway and in the script it was written that that uh ava green was in her underwear and you were in the you know and daniel said no they they don't get undressed they're in their clothes and i just remember that day oh my god it was there in the script but it was just it was sort of hinted at in the script and i just was all that about this thing about if we're going to go with the violence and we're going to go with the reality of it then you know it's still a james bond movie but the fact of it is i wanted to see what happens the effect it has on people and i was like she's in shock so she's sitting in the shower in her clothes it made complete sense to me [Music] i remember talking to the composer and saying that's the moment they fall in love and the music in that scene is just so beautiful david arnold the thing that daniel brought to the character in the series was bond's inner life and the emotional life and the complexity of the emotional life which was in the books but never really translated onto the screen until he came on and we were ready to make a shift because we were getting too fantastical in our series and daniel's a actor who can bring it down to where it belongs make it more real make it more emotionally connected made more dramatic and we wanted to make that change so we needed him to do it because we couldn't do it with anybody else barbara michael wanted to do something change it for a reason they wanted to to turn it on its head and i was like i'm up for that i'll if you're if that's what you want to do i'm up for that welcome martini chicken or stirred do i look like i give a damn a lot of the kind of the cliches as it were that have become cliches over the years because they've become bond tropes i was like we can't really do that we have to try and reinvent it but saying that he's really really difficult to write for putting words in in james bond's mouth because all anybody remembers are the one-liners you know for me the funniest lines are out of reality the greatest bond lines are stress release they're like they're a release of you know of tension so that you go oh god you know because it's he's in a terrible situation and you have to create that you have to create the tension and then have the one-liner you can't just the one line is not the scene i've got a little itch down there would you mind [Applause] to the right to the right to the right you are a funny man mr bond well the same was bomb james bond exactly i mean i know pierce everybody i mean pierce talks about it but it's like you know saying that line i mean if i have to say it i'll say it once to myself and then you're on a set and you think i'm fine i'm fine i'm fine and then you say it and it's like this the weight of it and i think i'm kind of quite i try and be quite cool about these things but it's impossible i mean i don't know how many takes we did at the end of casino royale but literally there are tapes with the name's bronn it's like a 13-year-old whose voice is breaking [Music] her name's bond james bond [Music] [Applause] the film was good but because people's expectations were let's go and see this train wreck i mean i think a lot of people did think i think they were going to go and see it for the kind of you know the shits and giggles factor the fact that this is let's go and see that's going to see this one shot wonder i mean all of that going on and it's like the response was i mean you know i remember being at the premier which was leicester square that was just like i mean i was like what is going on and the credits came up i mean the pre-title sequence and it's not the biggest pre-title sequence because it's just fight is in the bathroom isn't it that's all it is it's like it's black and white and it's not that particularly long it's not particularly ambitious like that and it came to the end and the music came in and everybody i mean everybody started sharing and it was just like you know i'm kind of feeling up about it now [Music] yeah i mean it was just it just went skyrocketed the movie went crazy and the reviews were crazy right they were views were great and the numbers were great although i think all that bad publicity we could have done better without it i think we could i think we could have done a lot better but we were good solid success [Music] daniel craig proved all his doubt is wrong with his debut in casino royale the most successful yet the highest grossing bond movie in history box office hit casino royale becomes the first ever in the series to be shown in china's cinemas the super spy has finally conquered the communists he really has completely re-energized this franchise congratulations you know i think a celebration's in order on quantum however we had a writer's stripe we had a a script it wasn't completed but it was nearly completed and we had a writer's strike i mean the movie kind of works it's not casino royale and that was always going to be it was like literally troubling second album syndrome in a way we could not top casino it's easy to say that of course we wanted to top casino but but you know we were up against the rider strike on one end which was we everybody knew was coming we knew was coming and we hadn't quite gotten the script right we didn't have a director yet and on the other end was the there was supposed to be an actor's strike a sag strike so we were like if we don't go now it's going to be never neverland so we basically started shooting without a script which is never a good idea but the script was turned in and i remember the the writer turned the script in and then picked up his check and then picked up his his placard and stood outside the studio striking anyway so we were kind of screwed and we had to all kind of muddle in and try and make the story work and it wasn't really working that great but you know i look back at the movie and you know it's still a good movie there's some really special moments in that film yeah very special i don't know the movie adheres together as well as it should but that was just because of the story was it wasn't solid we just didn't get bond's journey right in it which is the key it wasn't totally focused on his journey and i think sometimes we get we can get too wound up and plot rather than keep to the story which is an issue for these kind of fellows [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] what had happened weirdly and it's not nobody's fault i mean it's my fault mainly is that you know the stunt guys were like oh god you can do this so i'd get more and more and more to do and i was loving it it was great i was jumping all over the place so i threw myself into the stunts more than i threw myself because i the script was a bit kind of like i don't know what to do about the script i can't i'm not a writer i can't help and even though mark and i would sit and we'd try and bash things out i couldn't really help so i threw myself into stunts and i basically volunteered for every single stunt in the movie and that was with a hindsight it was a bad mistake because i got badly hurt but on quantum i think i was sort of overwhelmed my world had turned upside down upside down my personal life was affected by being fit that famous all of a sudden i can honestly say i was sort of in a bit cloud cuckoo land when you think about it i mean daniel went from not being a household name to being on the tea towels literally on the details that's a huge transformation for someone and i mean i remember you were sort of under siege at a point weren't you i mean i think i was physically under siege but i saw i was mentally under siege i mean you know when there are people in trees outside your house you're kind of you know i mean they say you know what we've got to be paranoid about [Music] i mean i didn't go out i mean i literally kind of would lock myself in and close the curtains because i didn't know how to handle it and i don't still i mean there were times i was worried for him because he wasn't enjoying life you know it felt like it was really a big sacrifice and then we did a play together in new york yeah i think that and hugh chapman taught me a few things yeah i mean that was interesting because well one of the things that you taught me was that i'm not hugh yeah because hugh's extraordinary i mean his wife calls him senator jackman so you know it's like so he goes out you know like he waves to the crowd and talks to everybody kisses every baby like that i mean it's like there for hours every night after the show and i kind of i didn't i joined in i kind of was like okay i mean they were you know because they were there to see us both i mean it's like and they were both and they were excited to see us both and it was so i think that broke a big it's the enjoyment it broke a ball yeah it broke a boil exactly it kind of it just made it that you know what it ain't that bad it became fun it became fun [Music] where the hell have you been you didn't get the postcard you should try it sometime get away from it all it really lends perspective when we got to skyfall it was about building the family again bmi of six family because we knew that judy would be departing and getting reef involved getting rafe involved and ben and ben and naomi harris so we felt we were betting into something again and giving bond his family his foundation back and it was like we have to have a new queue and you know ben the casting of ben was just like this genius thing it just pleased everybody always makes me feel a little melancholy grand old warship being ignominiously hauled away the scrap the inevitability of time don't you think what do you see a bloody big ship excuse me double seven i'm your new quarter master you must be joking why because i'm not wearing a lab coat because you still have spots i got very excited when i saw my friend daniel play james bond at casino royale and i thought it opened up all sorts of wonderful possibilities for the character and i wanted a huge challenge and for me this was an enormous challenge daniel had suggested sam which was a really great idea and you know sam was coming back to england and he'd never done anything on that sort of scale before and it was a great combination yeah you know sam came in and he loves actors and he loves directing actors and we had a great story and all the actors came up and turned up they created something they reinvented it they did it in a way that's incredibly memorable i think are you sure this is about him it's about her and you and me you see we are the last two rats we can either eat each other or eat everyone else how you're trying to remember your training now what's the regulation to cover this we're all first time for everything yes what makes you think this is my first time oh mr bond that scene with you and javier when the sort of sexual innuendo between the two of you and you say what makes you think this is my first time i mean i remember we were told to cut that line by the studio and we said no no no we resisted we resisted and i remember the night of the premiere that line just the whole place erupted then with that line i remember looking at the studio executive who was in the next thing and going see skyfall is an example again the complex story in a very simple plot and those emotional stories really work and both casino island and skyfall demonstrate that we had an ending you know we had an ending for skype we'd figured the ending out very early on it was emotionally very emotionally affecting as far as it's too late to make a run for it well i'm game if you are i just get one thing right the day that we filmed her death was was very emotional i mean it's uh it was it was difficult i mean we joked most of the day but it was actually it was it was very tough to do because she's been part of bomb for a while and it's like she has something about her and and it comes across interacting and it comes across in everything she does uh it was an extremely emotional day for all of us um i think for judy who was really holding it together um but you know for me also because during the sort of 17 years that we've been working together you know we've all been through a lot and um she's reinvented this character and it was pretty devastating we were all we were all a mess well i was a mess particularly i mean on a purely personal level the fact that i got to act with judy dench it was a lifelong ambition the fact that i got to act as judy dench being my m is just beyond the realms [Music] skyfall for me was a culmination of it was every it kind of ticked all my boxes were so many things about skyfall that were terrific the story and then bringing the family together and the really emotional ending and all that but then we also had adele and we also had the olympics and that was just incredible [Music] the stars of a new james bond movie skyfall are with us yes they are daniel craig is here the last time we saw you was bond uh with her majesty the olympics how long was that in the planning quite a long time uh danny boyle came to visit me on set um he sat me down he told me what he wanted to do and i walked out and said i didn't think i really thought he was just pulling my leg so um anyway the whole kind of thing um you know came about next thing i know i'm at the palace because you must have thought oh i'll agree to it but it'll never happen you know you can say well i didn't i mean i thought they hadn't sort of had to be okay from the palace but apparently apparently they got that first and then asked me so i didn't have much choice oh yeah imagine if you turned it down all the way around the stadium james bond epic [Music] starring daniel craig and her majesty the queen the british artist of the year award was created in 2006 and the first recipient was another incredibly talented actor rachel wires daniel's wife tania award the best of british sorry i'll get it together on the day first british british artist daniel artist and now six years later with rachel's patient tutelage and coaching he is in the position to be able to accept about 11 people got off of the role before him but don't don't put any of this clooney i think was first clooney i got offered um i think even yeah jude law got offered it will ferrell got off today together for the biggest artist of the year mr daniel [Applause] crane thank you basta for this it's incredibly humbling to receive this honor with all these amazingly talented people michael wilson and barbara broccoli together with cubby broccoli they made a franchise last 50 years and they allowed me to be part of it so thank you thank you [Music] we had to convince sam to do it i mean you know sam was very much in two minds about it he felt he'd done it and he'd done it so successfully to drag him back in but he got into it he approached this whole series with tremendous enthusiasm i would say you know let's get the car in let's do the biggest explosion he just really embraced all the tropes which was it was time for that to happen and uh and it was fun yeah i always wanted to have the gadgets and things back in the movie it was just bringing them back in an original way and i think sam and i had conversation before spectre was we make it kind of so it feels fresh but i think we needed to find a big hook to the story and then obviously what came up was the idea of bringing blowfeld back welcome james it's been a long time and finally here we are what took you so long i had a lot of fun on that movie but part of the problem was that movie i broke my leg and we had a we had a choice we could shut down for nine months and i could go and get operation or i could i could crack on with the movie and i didn't want to shut down for nine months i i thought i've got to finish the movie so i wore basically a bionic leg for the rest of the rest of the film which was not the greatest way to do a bond movie and you didn't stop doing all the action no and it you know unfortunately it was massively distracting for me so i i probably was talking through my ass when i said it was the best experience of my life because i was trying to juggle an awful lot of things i had to psychologically juggle my physical state [Laughter] troubles with the injury i had the leg would give way and which is kind of great when you watch me walking at the beginning of the movie and i climb out of a window and walk down a ledge and jump down another ledge and jump down another ledge i'm literally going don't give away don't give away don't give away i mean i've got a wire on but i'm i mean it's it's very traumatic i mean i'm trying to be cool but my leg is it's shot okay here we go [Music] he was in excruciating pain and that whole sequence the opening sequence was redesigned for him to be more stealth-like because you could barely walk i remember i was just looking at him and thinking i don't know how he's actually managing this i mean we had 1500 extras you know it was a massive massive sequence we'd shut down the square for four days and he was like i'm gonna do it you know but we changed the idea and i just said look we keep it mysterious so basically i'm doing a lot of entrances and exits and i think that kind of worked in a way it was fortuitous because that scene is exceptional and if we'd shut down god knows i don't know i didn't we never could have achieved well you know what they said nine month recovery i mean it may be for a 22 year old athlete but it's not for an amount of advancing views [Applause] [Music] i don't want to kind of go on about how hard specter was but it was it was tough and i needed a break i needed to kind of switch off i needed to get away and and i genuinely felt psychologically at the end of that film maybe i'm just too old and the problem is the way we started these films i've started my tenure at this was throwing myself at it like a bull in a china shop so to sort of not do that seemed to be like what's the point that's i mean it just felt like completely wrong i mean i genuinely i convinced myself that was it [Music] daniel craig is definitely not doing another bond movie in a super candid interview with time out while doing press for spectre daniel craig is asked if he'd want to do another bond movie his answer now i'd rather break this glass and slash my wrists it was two days after i finished shooting the last movie sure i went straight into an interview and someone said would you do another one okay and i went no i and i instead of saying something you know um with style and i gave a really stupid answer someone gave me a good analogy which is that if you were asked 200 meters from the end of a marathon whether you'd run another marathon you'd be you know you'd be fairly short and sweet about the answer which is what i was i've read that it'll be your last will this be your last i don't know the burning question will it be your last one who knows are you going to stay you're going to go around i just don't know the honest answer is i don't know i don't know daniel craig will you return as james bond yes you know harvard drives a hard bargain so i don't think i was ever really going to get away with leaving our perspective [Music] that was supposed to be his last movie although i told him it wasn't going to be it was supposed to be my last movie but barbara said no [Laughter] i said there is unfinished business we haven't told the rest of the story there is still story to be told here so we started this one with the idea that wow we got to go for broke the production on the latest film bond 25 was reportedly just shut down it's being reported that craig injured himself in jamaica on the set of bond 25 we had the injury but we also had you know we we started with one director we got another and then we had script issues that went on and on and on and it's also emotionally tough being daniel's last one it's tough on barbara and stuff on me and stuff on daniel especially and you know you don't appreciate that you don't appreciate how emotionally difficult it is to do these things they're always a struggle come on it's always the what it is but this has been it's been harder than most but because we were up against it so much people were just like gonna get it done this is the last one this is and it felt like everybody just bought into it [Music] [Music] [Applause] i'm just so thrilled at how this film has turned out there's something about this film that the culmination of the five films in this film in particular that makes me feel as if not only has he made his mark on the bon franchise but he has now made his mark in cinematic history i mean the night he completed the role and we wrapped the film was like a real moment and the last shot was him running down an alley disappearing out of the shop it was just unbelievable it was a historic moment everyone came it was we were night shooting and everyone came down to kind of witness the moment because we knew how significant it was it was deeply emotional i mean everyone was sobbing literally you know usually on night shoot everybody leaves no they just stood around and just embraced each other [Applause] you know i i've been doing this for a while and the summer people have actually worked with here i think most of my career which is getting on for about 30 years so that's quite a long time um and a lot of people here worked on five pictures with me and i know there's a lot of things said about what i think about these films and all of those whatever but i've loved every single second of these movies and especially this one because i've got up every morning and i've had the chance to work um with you guys and that has been one of the greatest honors of my life so [Applause] [Music] i look at what i've done and go that's part of goldfinger and i'm like wow i mean i'm connected to goldfinger i'm connected to doctor no i'm connected to live and let die i mean my tenure is what it is but it's only part of something bigger that's just that's what it is when you look back and go i'm i mean genuinely i feel like that but i look at the films and i'm incredibly proud of every single one of them i know we've done our best yeah for sure and we've really done our best [Music] yeah i mean he you know he's sitting here so it's awkward to say it but daniel has just taken this the character the series the whole thing to a place that is so extraordinary and so emotionally satisfying that i cannot imagine bond after daniel let's be honest leaving this role is not easy it's a really difficult thing to do and you know i can be as brazen and blase about it as i like it's still tough to do it's still tough to walk away from and it's not about money and fame because i've got it i mean i'm incredibly lucky i'm incredibly fortunate to have to be able to do this it's given me more things in my life than i could ever wish for and it's not about any of those things it's about a psychological connection to something that has taken up 15 years of my life and to walk away from something like that is very very tricky but i think it's okay now i do and it's because we did this movie really i mean i just think that it's all right now [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] down oh [Music] [Music] hey [Music] you

Channel: James Bond 007

Views: 493,838

Keywords: James Bond, 007, Daniel Craig, Casino Royale, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson, Skyfall, Spectre, No Time To Die, Quantum of Solace

Id: 2oZdJrph3RA

Length: 46min 39sec (2799 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 19 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/SpectreSaigon]

Thanks!

[u/winniebob]

Thanks! Just finished watching Becoming Bond on Hulu the other day. This is great timing.