After five films in which he starred as Ian Fleming’s secret agent 007, the actor is saying bon voyage to the character with the release of „No Time to Die.“ Does he care who carries on with the role?
Daniel Craig’s body of work is impressive. There’s his signature role, James Bond, and more than 40 other movies over a three-decade career on screen. But for the 53-year-old British actor, what matters most is what comes next. „I don’t really look back,“ he said. „I don’t really kind of spend my time looking over the movies I’ve done, or even watching them.“ One film, though, has stayed with him: 2004’s „Road to Perdition,“ made before Bond. Craig and Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz watched a scene together, when Craig and Paul Newman went toe-to-toe, in what proved to be Newman’s last appearance in a feature film: Craig said, „I look back on it now, and I just go, ‚My goodness me, that was a moment when things changed for me.‘ Not about my status or my recognition. Something within me went, ‚I am allowed to sit at this table.'“ Nineteen years later, his seat is secure, and then some. Just before the pandemic, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City celebrated Craig’s career with a retrospective of his work, including the films „The Mother,“ „Enduring Love,“ „Munich,“ „The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,“ and „Knives Out,“ in addition to „Casino Royale“ and „Skyfall.“ Mankiewicz asked, „As an artist, what does that feel like?“ „I’m a little bit bemused, to tell you the truth,“ Craig replied, „because it felt, it genuinely feels like I started doing this yesterday.“ Craig’s mother, an art teacher, encouraged her son to follow his dream of becoming an actor. He started on the stage, but from an early age, he was drawn to the big screen: „I still feel these are slightly sacred places. I can never help myself. There’s sort of, if I have a church, this is it. As a kid, you walked into a space and they were gonna turn the lights out, and something magic was gonna happen.“ Over 30 years Craig has demonstrated his range. He can be sensitive, as artist Francis Bacon’s lover in „Love Is the Devil“; and both ruthless and charming in „Layer Cake,“ the clever English crime drama that alerted producers he was capable of something much bigger.
