>> with Dave Bautista, a former professional
wrestler, on the set of a train at Pinewood. “I
was like, ‘Dave, throw me for Christ’s sake,’
because he was being light with me,” Craig
said. “So he threw me and, God bless him, he
just left my knee over there.” Craig spent the
rest of the shoot wearing a bulky knee brace,
which was disguised during the edit. “That
was a drag,” he said.
It was also why, when Craig was asked in
an interview two days after filming ended
whether he would make a fifth Bond movie,
he said that he would prefer to smash the
glass he was drinking from and slash his
wrists. Craig has never been comfortable
selling Bond. “You’re front and centre while
filming and then they tell you to go and sell
the movie. Literally, you’re standing in a crowd
of people,” he said. “And suddenly they’ve
all pushed you forward. And they’re like,
‘Go on!’ It’s really disconcerting. And you
think you’re responsible. And actually, of
course, you are.” Mendes has long sympa-
thised with Craig, who is not a smooth PR
man. “He is by nature a much more anarchic
person and he is not allowed to be that within
the franchise,” Mendes said. “His natural posi-
tion is to tell the truth.” After Spectre, Craig
told the truth. “I was never going to do one
again,” he told me. “I was like, ‘Is this work
really genuinely worth this, to go through
this, this whole thing?’ And I didn’t feel... I
felt physically really low. So the prospect of
doing another movie was just, like, off the
cards. And that’s why it has been five years.”The hiatus between Spectre and No Time
To Die has been the second longest in
the history of the franchise. And the
production of the 25th Bond has been no
picnic. In August 2018, Danny Boyle, who
shot Craig’s double act with the Queen for
London 2012 Olympics, walked away from the
film, citing creative differences with Broccoli
and Wilson. “Danny had ideas and the ideas
didn’t work out, and that was just the way it
was,” Craig said. At least four versions of the
script came and went. “I would love to have
gone into this and had a script that we could
shoot,” he said. “And it just didn’t happen.
There were so many things that went against
it.” Fukunaga, who is best known for making
HBO’s stylish True Detective, came on board
three months before production was due to
begin. Then Craig injured his ankle. The release
date was pushed back. In June, an explosion
at Pinewood injured a member of the crew.
The British tabloids called it a cursed film. “It
pisses me off,” Craig said. “Because I’m just
like, ‘Don’t curse our movie.’ And also, we’re
doing our best here.”
“The James Bond of it all,” as Craig sometimes
says, was clearly a monster. Craig was moreinvolved in the writing than in any of his other
Bond films. “This is my last movie,” he told
me. “I’ve kept my mouth shut before and I’ve
stayed out of it and I’ve respected it and
I’ve regretted that I did.” Craig was instru-
mental in hiring Waller-Bridge to work on
the script partway through the shoot. When
things were rough, he didn’t hold back. “I’ve
been very forceful in meetings and often way
too blunt and probably completely rude,”
Craig said. “But I’m like, ‘We’re here! Come
on!’ And I always say sorry.”
Waller-Bridge was more diplomatic. “He is
incredibly passionate about the work,” she
told me. “Bond is very close to his heart and
he fights for the integrity of the character
every step of the way.”
Fukunaga said that Craig suggested dia-
logue for entire scenes of No Time To Die,
trying to give a voice to a character who many
writers find frankly intimidating. “Daniel’s very
adamant that Bond is the driving force in every-
thing,” Fukunaga said. “He’s the jackhammer.”
Craig worked himself into the ground. “He is
tireless,” Fukunaga told me. “He will work until
he’s basically crawling home.”The first time we met, a few weeks after
the end of the shoot, Craig seemed almost too
close to it all. The production was too large and
too recent to make sense of it. “How much of
Phoebe is in there, who knows?” Craig said.
“We’re all in it somewhere. Phoebe’s in it,
Cary’s in it, the writers are in it, but it’s a... We
battled it and battled it and battled it. Who
knows?” he said. “I’m talking to you now.
I’ve seen bits of it. I haven’t seen it. Who the
fuck knows?”
But the truth is that, after 14 years, busted
shoulders, busted knees, the best part of £40m,
a place in the pantheon, a happy home, Craig
didn’t feel it so much on No Time To Die. “This
one I was like, ‘Nah, it’s not going happen. It’s
just not going to happen.’ It doesn’t mean I
wasn’t as wound up and just as fucking, like,
mad,” he said. “Because the world outside sort of
slightly ceases to exist. When you’re in it, you’re
in it and that’s the thing,” he said. And now Craig
is no longer completely in it. He can see a world
outside. “I don’t know what it is, maybe having
another kid, maybe just being older,” he told me.
“But all of these things, I was just like, you
know, fuck it. There are other things that are
more important.”I saw him again in London a few weeks later.
Craig was wearing a large brown leather cap
and carrying an empty suitcase. No one in the
hotel lobby seemed to recognise him. He was
in a sprightly mood. He was looking forward
to the Golden Globes, where he was nominated
for a best actor award for Knives Out. (The
movie has already made $300m [£230m] and
Craig is committed to being part of a planned
sequel.) “The success of it, going into Bond,
could not have come at a better time for me,”
he said. Craig was delighted by the contrasting
performances: a prolix, Sondheim-humming
private eye next to his taciturn, tormented
killer. “It’s not like, ‘OK, this is going to be
my career after Bond.’ There’s no plan to it.
It’s just kind of worked out.” Craig wasn’t
about to shoot anything straightaway. The
next few months were all about signing off
as 007. But unlike with some of the other
actors who have played Bond, it doesn’t make
much sense to worry about what Craig will do
next – especially when he sounds so unafraid.
“I’m pretty sure I can play just about any-
thing,” Craig told me. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure
I can, or at least I can make a fucking good
fist of it.”
It was early evening. We ordered some beers
from room service. Craig had spent the day in
a post-production studio in Soho, recording
dialogue for No Time To Die. That morning, he
had watched the film for the first time. It was
the reason he had crossed the Atlantic. For
security, the cut existed on only one or two
hard drives. “I couldn’t see it in New York. I
had to fly over,” Craig said. “Everything is on
such lockdown.”
No Time To Die was projected onto the wall of
an editing suite. There was no score, the special
effects weren’t finished, but Craig’s final Bond
movie was done. He had been allowed to invite
a few people to the screening. But he chose to
watch it alone. “I need to just be on my own,
kind of experiencing it,” he said. The first few
minutes are always unbearable: “Why am I
standing like that? What am I doing?” Craig
said. But it passes, and then he was the boy
in the empty cinema by the sea again, trans-
ported by a big, wild movie – only now it was
him who was up on the screen, doing whatever
that is. “I think it works,” Craig said, pausing
on every word. “So hallelujah.” GEVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
NO TIME TO DIE (GQ, February 2020)
KNIVES OUT PROVES DANIEL CRAIG IS A SECRET
COMEDY GENIUS (Alistair Ryder, November 2019)
WHY A FEMALE JAMES BOND WOULD BE BRILLIANT
(David Williams and Olive Pometsey, September 2019)+^ More from GQ For these related
stories visit GQ.co.uk/magazine‘ Daniel’s very
adamant that Bond
is the driving force
in everything.
He’s the jackhammer’
CARY FUKUNAGANO TIME TO DIE IS OUT ON 2 APRIL.DANIEL CRAIG04-20-DanielCriagWithCopy_3481961.indd 168 11/02/2020 16:48
168 GQ.CO.UK APRIL 2020