PLUS SCARLETT JOHANSSON, LINDSAY LOHAN AND ANGELINA JOLIE SHARE THEIR DREAMS

cover|story|DANIEL CRAIG
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supervillains, and, of course, fan-favourite Pierce Brosnan.
Considering Brosnan’s last outing as 007 in 2002’s Die Another
Day grossed nearly $450-million — the highest take for a Bond
film to date — the obvious question is: Why mess with success?
“Well, I think we’ve seen Bond films go through different
periods of change,” offers Michael G. Wilson, who produces the
Bond films with his stepsister Broccoli. “In the 1970s they got
bigger and bigger and more fantastic until we reached
Moonraker [1979] in outer space. And we realized that it was
going in the wrong direction and we brought it back to basics
with For Your Eyes Only [1981].
“And what we saw with Die Another
Day is that we got to the same point,”
continues Wilson. “We started getting
too high in the sky — outer space,
invisible cars — the technology began
to overwhelm the story and the characters.
We felt it was very important
to bring it back down to Earth.”
Though 007 has tangled with the
world’s worst villains and megalomaniacal
madmen over the past 44 years,
this time Bond’s greatest nemesis
has proven to be the media. Auric
Goldfinger and Blofeld were paper
tigers compared to the Fleet Street
tabloids, which have held Craig in
their crosshairs since it was anounced
the little-known, 38-year-old British
actor would replace Brosnan. Hounded
by criticism over a seeming lack of
necessary Bond attributes, Craig has
taken the attacks in stride.
“The truth is, if you’re not getting
bruised when you’re doing Bond,
you’re not doing it properly,” quips
Craig in true Bondian fashion, as he
sits down to chat at the posh One &
Only Ocean Club on the powderwhite
sand shores of Paradise Island.
“Quite honestly, I didn’t really
expect it,” admits the rugged, fairhaired
Craig, whose recent credits include Munich and The Jacket.
“I mean, I’ve been acting a while now and I’ve been in some big
movies before, but nothing on this level. And I’ve learned that
you can’t believe the good stuff and you can’t believe the bad
stuff. You kind of still take it in, but I’m really trying to ignore
it. I have to. I’m getting on with this.”
Faith in Craig’s abilities was strengthened shortly after filming
wrapped this summer, when Eon Productions announced that
it had signed Craig to another two Bond films, with the next one
due to start production in 2007.
Still, Craig confesses that the furor has upped the ante. “I’ve
been giving 110 percent from the very beginning, and maybe
after [the criticism] I was trying to give 115 percent, but I mean,
I’m giving everything I can,” he says.
“So once that’s all done and dusted,” he adds, “and once
we’ve got the movie out, people can say what they want. They
can criticize it then. But it’s really silly for anyone to criticize it
now because they haven’t seen it yet!”
Casino Royale begins in black and white before transitioning
“The truth is, if you’re not
getting bruised when you’re
doing Bond, you’re not doing
it properly,” says Craig
famous 32 | november 2006
to colour after Bond has made his first two kills and is elevated
to “00” status. “It’s a very tough story,” explains director
Martin Campbell (GoldenEye). “It’s very interesting that in the
book Bond finds violence very hard to take. When he has to do
two killings, one of them ends up becoming very ugly and
messy. It really affects him, even though he’s in denial about it.”
Agent 007’s first mission means facing down Le Chiffre
(Mads Mikkelsen), who is banker to the world’s terrorist
organizations. The Bond Girls include Italian stunner
Caterina Murino (Nowhere) as femme fatale Solange and
French beauty Eva Green (Kingdom of
Heaven) as Vesper Lynd, a representative
from the British Secret Service
sent to keep tabs on Bond.
“It’s a very special, unusual relationship
because Vesper is the only
woman who really gets to Bond’s
heart,” explains Green, relaxing
waterside between takes. “They really
fall in love. She has a big impact on
his life and he will later become the
Bond that we all know because of
that one relationship.”
Under Campbell’s direction, the
crew has been maximizing its time in
the Bahamas, which will also double
for Madagascar and Montenegro in
the film’s key action scenes.
The next day’s shoot on Coral
Harbour includes a spectacular foot
chase through the jungle and then
the alleyways of a shantytown, culminating
in a showdown 10 storeys up,
across narrow steel girders in an
abandoned construction site. Craig
works out for two hours every night
after shooting wraps, and watching
him in action, it’s obvious he has the
athletic prowess necessary for the role.
“You see how physical this job is
for me,” says Craig, catching his
breath between takes and wiping the
sweat from his forehead. “I got a personal trainer for this film,
which has been an absolute godsend.
“I knew I had to be in the best shape I could be,” he adds with
a grin, “otherwise I would never survive it…. Because at the end
of the day there isn’t any painting-it-in for this movie. These stunts
aren’t going to be helped by CGI...what you’re seeing is the
real thing. It’s the ‘wow’ factor. Audiences get it when the stunts
are done for real and people actually put their lives in danger.”
For Campbell, it’s all about making the 21st James Bond film
“the most realistic and emotionally involving” film of the series.
“I mean, how many control rooms can you blow up? How many
madmen can take over the world? How many space stations can
you take over,” asks Campbell with a shrug. “The argument is
simply we’ve taken Bond as far as we can with the formula...so
let’s see if we can shake it up a little bit.”
David Giammarco is the Senior Reporter for TV’s E Talk and the
author of For Your Eyes Only: Behind The Scenes of the
James Bond Films (ECW Press).
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