Talktime | Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig talks about the 24th James Bond adventure film Spectre which is all set to release in India on November 20
Where will Spectre stand in the pantheon of Bond filmsIJ
With Spectre, we’ve done the best we could. When you consider who we’ve got in the movie and who directed it, it’s a special collection of people. We’ve put the money in the right places and we tried to make the best movie we could.
What was the particular challenge on this filmIJ
Every day, we’d look at the script, and we’d say, ‘This is good. Can we make this betterIJ’ We’d work on the script every day on the set with the other actors and would try to make things better all the time.
Your James Bond is very different from those that have come before. Were you involved in itIJ
I’m a big fan of James Bond. When I did Casino Royale, if I had been presented with a script that had lots of jokes in it, I would have said, ‘No, I can’t do this movie, because that isn’t my thing. Thankfully, it wasn’t like that.
You seem quite involved in all aspects of the production.
I said to Barbara Broccoli, the producer, 10 years back, that I needed the confidence to walk on set and to pretend to be James Bond, because I am not James Bond. I’m a long way off being him. But if I was given the confidence to be a part of what was going on and to input into what the films were about, and if we could collude and collaborate, then I could give it a go. They were receptive. They listened to me and I couldn’t be happier with the way things have gone.
There is a new Aston Martin in this movie. How much of the driving were you able to doIJ
I am not James Bond and there are guys who are superb drivers, just eye wateringly brilliant drivers and I’d be an idiot to not let them drive. They drive and I just pretend, I am just acting.
Do you feel pressure to repeat the success of SkyfallIJ
Not really, because how do you do thatIJ You’d be chasing your tail. The success was amazing. We had great success on the last movie so we had to make this better, and that for me is the challenge. That’s the best way to be working — when you are challenged.
How do you feel about the character after playing him four timesIJ
I felt that it was like my first time. Sam Mendes and I would get to set and then we would go, ‘Is this as good as we can make itIJ Is this what we want from thisIJ’ And for this challenge, I had locked everything out. When I was on set and not working I would just listen to my iPod.