Daniel Craig is known for playing British secret agent James Bond in a handful of flicks released across the last two decades.
Craig remembered how one film in particular was a “f—ing nightmare” to put together as the industry succumbed to the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike.
The 56-year-old action star was riding a wave of success after receiving critical acclaim for his Bond debut in the 2006 hit, “Casino Royale,” but left critics and fans with more questions than answers after “Quantum of Solace” was released in 2008.
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Craig told The Hollywood Reporter that “Quantum of Solace” was a “difficult second album” due to the writer’s strike, multiple filming locations, and lack of consistent storytelling.
“F—ing nightmare. Paul Haggis did a pass on the script, then he went off and joined a picket line, and we didn’t have writers, so we didn’t have a script,” he remembered. “We probably should never have gone and started production, but we did.
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“I ended up writing a lot of that film — I probably shouldn’t really say, and I do not want a credit, it’s fine — but we were in that state because that’s what we’re allowed to do. I was allowed to work.”
He added, “Under WGA rules we were allowed to work with a director and write scenes. But there’s some amazing stunt sequences in that, and I’m still bearing the pins to prove it, so in that sense there’s a lot of great stuff in it, but it just didn’t quite work. The storytelling wasn’t there. And that’s the abject lesson: going to start a movie without a script, it’s just… not a good idea.”
Craig grew up wanting to play the beloved spy, but had no idea his dream would come to fruition.
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He likened the idea of playing Bond one day to portraying “Batman and Spider-Man, but you can’t play them all,” Craig said. “I wanted to be all of those people. But when I was actually acting, it didn’t enter my thoughts. I thought that was the last thing that would ever happen to me.”
When he was first offered the role, he turned it down out of fear — and lack of a script.
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“There wasn’t a script at the time, so again, my arrogance was unbelievable, but I just was like, ‘Well, until I see a script, I couldn’t possibly make a decision.’ And it was fear, exactly what you’re talking about, of that thing and many others, how it would flip my life,” Craig said.
“I was making a pretty good living at the time, so if I’d spent my life doing what I was doing at that time, I would’ve been more than happy. But it really was one of those things where — I mean to be typecast as James Bond? Boo-hoo.”
A chance meeting with a former Bond legend helped guide him toward his destiny.
“I sat next to Pierce [Brosnan] at an event and talked to him about it, and he just went, ‘Go for it. Just go for it,’” Craig remembered. “He had nothing really else to say. Which I took to heart. I went for it.”
