The James Bond movie Daniel Craig hated making: “A bit of a shitshow to say the least”
As one of the most coveted roles in cinema that only changes hands every decade or so, Daniel Craig would have been fully aware from the second he first signed on the dotted line to play James Bond that it was going to be the defining role of his career, regardless of whatever else he manages to accomplish.
Completely understandably, as soon as he wrapped up his tenure and didn’t have a vested interest in the ongoing adventures of cinema’s most famous secret agent, he stopped caring. However, like all of his predecessors, he’ll be lucky if he manages to get through an interview, public appearance, or red carpet for the rest of his life without somebody bringing up 007.
Craig has already made it perfectly clear that he couldn’t care less who follows in his footsteps, but he was similarly frank when he was the main man. The actor infamously suggested he’d rather slash his own wrists than play Bond again, only to end up playing Bond again when No Time to Die provided him with a definitive exit strategy to ensure everybody knew he wasn’t coming back under any circumstances.
Casino Royale was a fantastic start to his arc, reinventing Bond as a more gritty and grounded character, but Craig immediately fell victim to second-movie syndrome. Powering through production in the midst of a strike is never going to yield the best results, and the star wasn’t interested in sugarcoating his sophomore outing under the tux.
“We did Quantum of Solace, which was a bit of a shitshow, to say the least, and the full weight of it made me locked up,” Craig admitted to Empire. He’d gotten his introductory film out of the way, but the combination of familiarity, a rushed production schedule, and a script that was never really finished to anybody’s satisfaction created a storm of mediocrity.
“Sometimes I would yearn after the person I was when we did Casino Royale,” he confessed. “Sometimes too much knowledge is just a little bit not a good thing. I was in the dark about a lot of things, about the way things worked, about the way the world really viewed Bond. Then, I suddenly started understanding them, and the weight of it bored me down.”
The way Craig tells it, one of the reasons why Casino Royale was so successful is due to the fact he didn’t pay any attention to the baggage that comes with being Bond. When that started to weigh heavily on Quantum of Solace, it affected his work, and the troubled production didn’t do the movie any favours, either.
It’s comfortably the weakest of the quintet, but at least the “shitshow” was swiftly followed by Skyfall, arguably Craig’s best and also the highest-grossing Bond flick ever made.
