The cringeworthy James Bond moment Daniel Craig called a “fucking trainwreck”
For the most part, Daniel Craig did a damn fine job as James Bond. Not all of his movies were great, but he didn’t disgrace himself in them, and he managed to walk away with his head held high.
The same can’t be said for some of his predecessors, and Craig will be grateful that he didn’t stick around for too long and creak through at least two films too many like Roger Moore, be stuck with some shitty CGI windsurfing like Pierce Brosnan, or get papped out of the part like George Lazenby.
Even when his 007 adventures weren’t firing on all cylinders, particularly Quantum of Solace, the leading man always made sure to leave everything on the table. In hindsight, that may not have been the best idea, since he also developed the habit of getting injured after performing so many of his own stunts.
One of the driving forces behind his grandstanding introduction in Casino Royale, which effortlessly took its place among the all-time Bond flicks, was Craig’s insistence that nothing about the production set off his Austin Powers alarm, with Mike Myers’ comedic creation doing such a great job of lampooning the long-running franchise that it didn’t have any other option but to take itself incredibly seriously.
That said, his first official appearance as the newly-installed incarnation of Ian Fleming’s literary creation was ironically the most unintentionally hilarious thing about his tenure. Instead of a simple press release or official statement, Eon Productions and MGM whisked Craig away from the set of Oliver Hirschbiegel’s awful The Invasion, floppy hair and all, and stuck him on a speedboat.
Looking like a deer in the headlights, at no point did the actor ever come across as feeling remotely comfortable. Naturally, the tabloids smelled blood in the water, and the immediate aftermath was wave after wave of negative press, pointing to his awkward and cringeworthy introduction as proof that he was already the worst Bond of all time.
Of course, he made those doubters eat their words, and with a heavy dollop of sarcasm, Craig fondly reminisced on that fateful day. “Once the announcement was made, we did that incredibly successful press conference,” he said, tongue almost bursting from inside his cheek. “I’ve watched bits of it. It’s a fucking trainwreck.”
He’s right, it was a fucking trainwreck, and he’s rarely felt more uncomfortable in his own skin. “I didn’t know how to turn on the charm, which was to be charming and be artful about it: ‘Oh, that’s a lovely question, how nice of you to ask that,'” he confessed. “I was just, ‘Fuck you! You, fuck you as well! That’s all I wanted to say.'”
The knives were out from that moment on, but by the time the monochromatic cold open to Casino Royale had ended, they were put back in the drawer, because it only took minutes for Craig to show the world that, as the new James Bond, he was the real deal.
