When Daniel Craig broke his co-star’s nose and ran away: “I thought he was going to come after me”
He might be absolutely killing it these days as Benoit Blanc, but to many, Daniel Craig will always be James Bond.
Across his five films and 15 years with the character, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed specimen brought an entirely new dimension to the ageing character. This was a Bond for the modern age; a damaged, emotional Bond who wasn’t afraid to show his soft side before kicking you directly in the mush. He’s a lot of people’s pick for the best Bond of all time, and I’m not going to disagree with them.
During his time working for MI6, Craig put his body through more than its fair share of strain. He hurt himself on the set of almost all of his Bond movies, with injuries ranging from losing two of his teeth on Casino Royale to cutting off the tip of his finger on Quantum of Solace. The physicality of the character was one of the reasons why he quit the franchise, but not before he hurt his ankle while making No Time to Die.
Clearly fed up with being chucked around, Craig decided he’d be the one doing the hurting during production on Spectre. The secondary antagonist of the film is a menacing gentleman named Mr Hinx, played by Dave Bautista. The pair finally come face-to-face during a climactic battle aboard a train… or should that be fist-to-face.
“I threw a punch and hit him on the nose,” Craig revealed on The Graham Norton Show. “I heard this crack, and I was like, ‘Oh God, no,’ and ran away. I thought he was going to come after me, but he was so sweet… He’s a lot tougher than I am. I’ll give him that.”
In hindsight, Craig needn’t have worried. Before he was an actor, his unintended victim was a professional wrestler under the name Batista. During his time in the ring, Bautista suffered plenty of knocks, including tearing his triceps muscle twice in one year and suffering a compression fracture on his spine. In wrestling, a broken nose is like a papercut. After getting bopped in the face, Bautista apparently reset his nose and carried on.
Despite being given the nickname ‘The Animal’ during his wrestling days, Bautista seems like a lovely guy. Although maybe he wasn’t as cool with Craig as he first thought. As the Knives Out actor went on to explain on the same chat show, he and Bautista were performing a throwing stunt when something went horribly wrong.
“I ended up on the wall, but my knee was over here somewhere,” he said. “I knew, and it was horrible because if anyone’s had a serious injury, you just know in your head that something is really wrong.”
Be it in the ring or on a movie set, Craig and Bautista are both used to getting beaten up. However, while Dave is a 300lb man mountain with more muscles than most of us have hair follicles, his co-star is a lot less sturdy. Somebody wrap that poor man up in cotton wool.
