Daniel Craig talks about bidding James Bond goodbye in ‘No Time to Die’

By JAKE COYLE

NEW YORK (AP) — When Daniel Craig archetypal got the gig, helium felt similar thing had gone amiss. “You’ve got the incorrect guy,” helium told the producers.

But Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson insisted. No, helium was the one. He was James Bond.

Craig, past a rising performer but acold from the expected choice, ne'er had immoderate ambitions to play James Bond. He had assumed helium was being strung on arsenic portion of a monolithic casting machine, 1 of dozens of actors surface tested.

“Once I did find out, I was incredibly flattered and profoundly confused,” Craig recalled successful an interview. “I conscionable felt similar I wasn’t the close person.”

Fifteen years and 5 films later, Craig’s tenure arsenic 007 is coming to a close. “No Time to Die,” which opens successful the U.S. connected Friday aft a 16-month hold owed to the pandemic, is the past hurrah successful Craig’s celebrated Bond era, a stewardship that saw Craig remake and emotionally deepen the erstwhile retrograde superspy — with much than $3 cardinal successful container bureau on the way. Once derisively labeled “Blond Bond,” Craig turned retired to beryllium a smash success.

“It paid disconnected successful spades,” said Broccoli. “He’s genuinely remarkable. He’s reinvented it for the 21st century. He explored the inner-life of Bond.”

But would Craig person ever gone done with it had helium known what helium was successful for?

“If I had known more, I don’t deliberation I would person been capable to bash it. The little accusation I had backmost then, the better,” said Craig, speaking by Zoom from New York. “The remainder of it, the value of it, however immense it each truly is — I didn’t know. I didn’t truly understand.”

He pauses. “I don’t accidental I truly recognize it now, either,” Craig added. “I unreal to understand. That’s what getting older is each about. I unreal amended than I did backmost then.”

“No Time to Die,” directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, is, with certainty, Craig’s last crook successful the tux. But it’s besides a culmination of wherever Craig has been driving Bond. His 007 is simply a character, not an icon, susceptible of grief and regret, and acold from bulletproof. That improvement takes halfway signifier successful “No Time to Die.”

“I ever conscionable felt: How bash these things impact him? Within a Bond world. Not in, like, a Hamlet way. But successful a Bond world,” says Craig, who won’t play Hamlet but Macbeth — a play astir the perils of ambition — connected Broadway adjacent year.

“No Time to Die” started disconnected unsteadily with writer-director Danny Boyle departing implicit originative differences. Fukunaga stepped successful and the publication was wholly rewritten. That the movie was adjacent happening successful the archetypal spot was, to some, surprising. After the erstwhile entry, 2015’s “Spectre,” Craig had suggested he’d alternatively slit his wrists than marque another. The carnal toll of the films and the clip committedness — “It’s a year,” helium says of each movie — was wearing connected him.

“I’ve often been criticized arsenic moaning astir it,” said Craig, 53. “After ‘Spectre’ I went: I don’t deliberation I tin bash this anymore. I got to a constituent wherever it was like: The hazard feels excessively great. That telephone telephone location wherever I telephone up and accidental I’m injured, I’m successful the infirmary — it’s not a bully telephone telephone to make, and it’s happened a batch implicit the years.”

He chuckles. “It happened connected this arsenic well, but determination you go.”

During filming successful Jamaica, Craig slipped portion moving connected a bedewed dock and severely injured his ankle. The filmmakers could hardly cognize past that temporarily losing their prima would conscionable beryllium 1 of galore headaches to come. Before the pandemic arrived, “No Time to Die” was slated to unfastened successful April 2020. Television ads ran. Craig hosted “Saturday Night Live.” The film’s theme, by Billie Eilish, was released, and won a Grammy months earlier the film’s London premiere.

“No Time to Die” arrives astatine a important juncture for the movie business. Lately, immoderate summons income person been reaching pre-pandemic levels. Bond is poised not conscionable to prevention the satellite 1 much clip but besides springiness movie theaters a assistance portion he’s astatine it. Sales successful the U.K. implicit the play were connected par with the opening for 2012’s “Skyfall,” which cleared $1.1 cardinal astatine the container office.

Change, though, is everywhere. In May, Amazon announced plans to get Bond’s location studio, MGM. With that came pledges that Bond films volition ever archetypal beryllium released successful theaters.

“We’ve been told that by MGM and Amazon and instrumentality them astatine their word,” said Wilson. “Throughout the past of Bond, we person seen our workplace sold retired from nether america galore times. For 60 years, we’ve had countless antithetic owners and we’ve managed to enactment making our films and keeping Bond going.”

But Craig’s departure whitethorn trial the franchise much than immoderate erstwhile 007 changing of the defender since Sean Connery exited. During his 5 films, Craig has shaped the wide bid arsenic overmuch arsenic helium has the character, bringing successful top-class filmmakers and raising the bar, overall.

“I asked them consecutive out. I said: Listen, the assurance I request to play this relation — 1 of the astir assured radical successful movie history, if not the astir assured quality being successful movie past — I request to beryllium capable to instrumentality part,” said Craig. “I request to beryllium capable to cognize what’s going on, to person an opinion, to consciousness similar I person a voice. They conscionable said yes, we privation you to beryllium involved.”

“A batch of wealth is spent connected these movies,” added Craig. “If there’s going to beryllium a batch of wealth spent connected these movies, past we request to get the best. We request to get the champion successful the industry. That I consciousness astir arrogant of.”

Expect to perceive endless rumors and speculation of a successor to Craig for the adjacent year. (The Onion wryly reports Wallace Shawn is successful the mix.) Broccoli and Wilson, though, accidental their existent absorption is connected celebrating Craig’s swan song. They’ve acceptable nary parameters but to accidental that Bond is foundationally a antheral character.

“It’s not similar we’re trying to beryllium evasive,” said Broccoli. “We’re genuinely not astatine a constituent yet wherever we privation to commencement reasoning astir wherever it could go. So, I deliberation it is simply a cleanable slate. We could spell anyplace with the character.”

Craig cares that the films stay applicable successful the future. But helium sounds astir gleeful that those concerns are nary longer his.

“Thankfully, it’s not up to maine anymore,” said Craig, smiling. “I volition respect from afar.”

In the meantime, once-rigid powerfulness structures wrong the Bond satellite person been partially dismantled from the inside. In “No Time to Die,” Lea Seydoux returns arsenic Madeleine Swann, the archetypal clip a Bond emotion involvement — a alleged “Bond girl” — has carried implicit betwixt films. In the film, Swann and Bond’s narration isn’t disposable. It’s central.

“She’s not stereotyped. She’s not a intersexual object,” said Seydoux. “Daniel, who’s a feminist, truly wanted to person much absorbing pistillate characters.”

“I privation everybody connected surface to mean something, to person weight,” said Craig. “I’ve loved immoderate of the characters successful the past movies and they person impact. But there’s a batch that’s rather forgettable due to the fact that they were trained to beryllium thing oregon whatever. I conscionable wanted everybody to beryllium remembered, to merit to beryllium up determination connected the screen.”

Lashana Lynch besides makes Bond past successful “No Time to Die” arsenic the archetypal pistillate 007. (Bond has near the work successful the film, freeing up his codification name.) Lynch, a British Jamaican actor, was lone truly gripped by Bond erstwhile Craig took implicit successful 2006’s “Casino Royale.”

“For maine arsenic a Black pistillate to beryllium capable to subordinate to this achromatic man, that’s magic,” said Lynch. “That’s the powerfulness that Daniel Craig has brought to the franchise, but besides the powerfulness of the creators down making definite they’re keeping the fans connected committee and inviting caller fans to articulation successful the fun.”

On a movie set, the last changeable successful a time is nicknamed the martini. When it came clip for Craig to movie his past country and wrapper his 15 years arsenic Bond, it was a rainy, acold precocious nighttime connected the backlot of Pinewood studios.

But everyone connected the unit — the producers, heads of section and actors — gathered to witnesser the occasion. Broccoli noted the fittingness of the country — Craig moving distant from camera, into the dark. As seen successful a wide shared video clip, Craig was rather moved by the juncture arsenic helium spoke to the assembled crew. You mightiness accidental helium was shaken by the martini.

“The past time of filming is seldom a punch-in-the-air moment. It’s usually a hard slog astatine the extremity of the day. Everyone wants to spell home,” says Craig. “I thought: ‘Oh s—. I person to marque a speech.’”