Editor’s LetterAPRIL 2020
Photographed for British GQ in New York
by Lachlan BaileyOn the cover: T-shirt by Raggedy Threads,
£80. raggedythreads.com. Trousers
by Richard Anderson, £249.
richardandersonltd.com
On the subscribers’ cover: Sunglasses
by Jacques Marie Mage, £425.
jacquesmariemage.com. Watch by Omega,
from £3,910. omegawatches.come chose Sam Knight to interview Daniel Craig for this issue because
he was simply the best person for the job. Craig isn’t just known
for his ability to fully inhabit the role of Britain’s most famous
secret agent, but he also famously performs the full-time role of one
of the country’s most secretive actors. Many is the profile writer who
has come away from time with Craig only to find the actor has a licence
to kill... most searching enquiries.
Which is why GQ sent for our very own hired gun: Sam Knight. A staff
writer at the New Yorker, Knight has previously written for GQ on everything
from poverty and migration to the spending sprees of football club-owning
oligarchs (even talking his way onto the player’s plane in the strange case of
Anzhi FC for the latter, the Russian club that came from nowhere to sign the
likes of Samuel Eto’o and Roberto Carlos and disappeared just as quickly).
But Knight’s real skill comes in shining a new light on those subjects that
already feel like they’ve been covered from every angle, be it his profile of
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for the New Yorker, his extraordinary piece for the
Guardian on what will happen when the Queen dies (one of the finest pieces of
journalism I’ve read in the past ten years) or even writing a potted history of the
humble sandwich – a Guardian long read that went viral worldwide.
Knight’s piece examines Craig’s relationship with Bond with both granular detail
and a macro eye, finally putting the partnership into genuine context. You will not
read a better piece about Daniel Craig – or James Bond, come to that – all year.
Craig has always been the most cerebral of Bonds. Not bookish, like Timothy Dalton
(remember him?), but certainly willing to play with Bond’s innate circumspect nature.
There was certainly a mournful tone to Dalton’s Bond, but Craig has perhaps been the most
reflective version of Ian Fleming’s spy, playing him with a strong sense of particularity.
Sean Connery’s boilerplate has been a difficult one to better, although both critics and public
alike soon came to think of Craig as their best ever Bond. Craig added guts and a weird con-
temporary sense of duty. “Jeez,” you could almost hear him thinking, “if I have to play this
unreconstructed Lothario then at least I’m going to play him with dignity.”
However, as much as Craig has moved the dial with Bond, in essence he has had
to adhere to a template, with the way he behaves, the way in which he sees the world >>Both critics and
public alike think of
Daniel Craig as the
best ever version of
Ian Fleming’s spy04-20EditorsLetter_3351554.indd 29 13/02/2020 11:41
APRIL 2020 GQ.CO.UK 29