>> Craig struggled through his. Since having
a daughter with his wife, Rachel Weisz,
in 2018, he has often found himself on the
edge of tears. (Craig also has an adult daugh-
ter from an earlier marriage.) “I had a whole
thing kind of put together in my head that
I wanted to say,” he recalled. “I couldn’t get
it out.”
Craig’s stunt double was in tears. Broccoli and
Wilson looked on. “We knew it was a monu-
mental moment,” Broccoli said. “There wasn’t
a dry eye, to be honest.” A crowd went back
to Craig’s trailer. He drank Campari and tonics
and made Negronis for everyone else. “I was
a mess,” Broccoli said. “I was a complete and
utter mess.” On set, the crew hung around. “It’s
night shooting – everybody usually runs off,”
Wilson told me. “And they just were talking
with each other and shaking hands. And it was
as if they knew it had to end, but they didn’t
like the idea.”
The producers were reminiscing a few
weeks later in a hotel in Lower Manhattan.
It was early December. That morning, Craig
and the other stars of No Time To Die – Léa
Seydoux, Rami Malek and Lashana Lynch –
had appeared on Good Morning America to
launch the trailer. Crosby Street was a parking
lot of celebrities’ black SUVs. Watching the
trailer on my phone, like the rest of the world,
the 25th Bond movie didn’t look a whole
lot different from the 24th or the 23rd. The
trailer showed Bond zooming a motorbike up
some picturesque steps and Malek, as the
baddie, in a worrying mask. There was some
evident double-crossing.
Craig, however, did seem like a new person
as he prepared to step away from the franchise.
He was keen to celebrate his work as Bond
and even keener to look forward to whatever
is coming next. “I’m really... I’m OK,” he told
me. “I don’t think I would have been if I’d done
the last film and that had been it. But this, I’m
like...” He dusted his hands. “Let’s go. Let’s get
on with it. I’m fine.”
It was a different story with the rest of the
Bond family. Craig’s films in the role have
grossed more than $3bn (£2.3bn). He also
changed the part in dramatic terms. In Craig’s
hands, Bond aged, fell in love and wept for
the first time. He lost the smirk and gained a
hinterland. During the same period, Britain –
which Bond, in some way, always represents- has experienced extraordinary turmoil and
self-doubt, Me Too has happened and it’s very
unclear who the good guys are any more. It’s
just possible that Craig smashed Bond in more
ways than one. The films can never go back
to what they were. When I asked Broccoli
how she was going to cope without Craig, it
was her turn to flounder. “Honestly, I don’t
know,” she replied. “I can’t... I don’t want to
think about it.” >>
DANIEL CRAIG04-20-DanielCriagWithCopy_3481961.indd 154 11/02/2020 16:42
154 GQ.CO.UK APRIL 2020