Source: TimeOut-London
Speaking to TimeOut-London, actor Daniel Craig reflects back on Quantum of Solace and discusses his upcoming roles in Skyfall and The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo.
On Rooney Mara being cast as Salander in The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo:
Craig: "There were shenanigans going on while she was being cast [about whether she was right: Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan and Scarlett Johansson were all linked to the role]. David Fincher was adamant and I get that. Just look at the beginning of “The Social Network”, she’s phenomenal. She’s got something about her, but also she’s physically perfect. When she puts the hoodie on and the leather jacket, she looks like a 14-year-old boy, she looks sexless. Which is perfect. The other side of it is that when she doesn’t have that on, she’s really sexy.
That combination is absolutely true to the book. Salander’s someone who would walk down the street and you wouldn’t notice. That’s how she wants it, that’s how she’s survived in her life. She’s switched herself off from humanity and she walks in the shadows."
On how we was impressed with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo director David Fincher after The Social Network:
Craig: "I think that film was a real shift for him in the way he makes movies. I think his visual style was all there, but it was embedded in the movie in a way I hadn’t seen before. I love all his movies, but “Fight Club” dated because the visual style was copied in commercials and if you’re that cutting edge you’re always going to be up against that. You’re creating new things in movies and people are going to steal them. With “The Social Network”, I felt there was a maturing of him, he’s always been a great filmmaker but he suddenly became confident about storytelling and visual stuff and the two married together in a way I hadn’t seen him do with such confidence."
On the importance of a script and how that impacted Quantum of Solace:
Craig:"Yes and you swear that you’ll never get involved with shit like that, and it happens. On “Quantum”, we were [frick]ed. We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers’ strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, “Never again”, but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes – and a writer I am not.
Me and the director [Marc Forster] were the ones allowed to do it. The rules were that you couldn’t employ anyone as a writer, but the actor and director could work on scenes together. We were stuffed. We got away with it, but only just. It was never meant to be as much of a sequel as it was, but it ended up being a sequel, starting where the last one finished."
On the influence he exerted to get Sam Mendes to direct Skyfall:
Craig: "I did, yes, I did. He’s English, he’s Cambridge-educated, he’s smart. He’s lived with Bond all his life, he grew up with Bond the way I did. We grew up at exactly the same time, and I said to him, “We have to do this together, we have exactly the same reference points, we both like the same Bond movies and we both like the same bits in the same Bond movies we like.” We sat down and we just rabbited for hours about “Live and Let Die” or “From Russia with Love”, and talked about little scenes that we knew from them. That’s how we started talking about it. That’s what we tried to instill in the script. He’s been working his arse off to tie all these things together so they make sense – in a Bond way."
Craig:
"I weighed everything up and the only reason not to do it was fear. The fear of losing everything else. And you can’t not do something because you’re afraid. Well, you can, jumping off cliffs and things like that, but to be afraid of losing something because I was going to play James Bond is kind of nonsense. That’s how I convinced myself. I thought: Even if it goes wrong, hopefully I’ll earn enough money to live on an island when I’m old and get a leathery brown tan! And drink cocktails in the afternoon. Which sounds quite good to tell the truth."
On attempting to break into the American film scene before Bond:
Craig:
"I went to audition for a lot of bad guys in American movies and was sick of going on tape to play the villain in this and that film…and then losing out to [frick]ing… no, I’d better not say who!"
On the iconography that comes along with James Bond:
Craig:
"The iconography of it is really important. I’ve just spent three or four months on and off with Tom Ford, trying suits on, over and over. It’s important. It just is. Whichever is the first suit I come out in, it has to have the reaction, “Oh, [frick]ing hell, that’s a suit.” You have to have an eye on that and the look and feel of things. I’m in the gym every day, that’s the truth, I have to be there. I have to start doing it ten weeks off from filming, otherwise it doesn’t work."
There's much more from Craig over on TimeOut-London, the interview is quite lengthy but it's fascinating to hear Craig speak so candidly so I recommend that everyone click the link underneath the banner and read the full transscript.
Daniel Wroughton Craig (born 2 March 1968) is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert. His breakthrough performances were in the films Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Road to Perdition, Layer Cake, Munich, and The Golden Compass.
Craig became well known internationally after he was cast as the sixth actor to portray fictional secret agent James Bond in the film series. He made his début as the character in the 2006 film, Casino Royale. He was critically acclaimed, and was nominated for a BAFTA award, for his portrayal in the film. Other notable appearances include roles in films such as Defiance, Cowboys and Aliens, The Adventures of Tintin, and the upcoming English-language adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
In Skyfall, Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.
In The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) is aided in his search for a woman who has been missing for forty years by Lisbeth Salander (Mara), a young computer hacker.