Daniel Craig has reflected on his worries that he would be typecast after playing James Bond.
Craig appeared on a special episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded at Chapman University in Orange County. He took questions from questions about his life, career and his latest film Queer from an audience of 500 students.
One of these students asked if Craig was ever nervous when he accepted the role of James Bond that he would be typecast in future.
“Yes, for sure. That’s why I turned it down — I mean, I said, ‘No’,” he said. “There wasn’t a script at the time, so again, my arrogance was unbelievable, but I just was like, ‘Well, until I see a script, I couldn’t possibly make a decision.’ And it was fear, exactly what you’re talking about, of that thing and many others, how it would flip my life.
“I was making a pretty good living at the time, so if I’d spent my life doing what I was doing at that time, I would’ve been more than happy. But it really was one of those things where — I mean to be typecast as James Bond? Boo-hoo.”
Craig played Bond across five films – Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die (2021).
Last month, he admitted he wasn’t interested in who would succeed him as 007 – Variety recently asked him, “If you were to pass the James Bond torch, who would you love to see play him?” and he replied, ‘I don’t care.’”
Meanwhile, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer sees Craig play William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, who spends his days and nights cruising gay bars and picking up young men, as well as mingling with other members of a small homosexual expat community. He then begins a love affair with the American student Eugene Allerton.
In a four-star review of the film, NME wrote: “Craig delivers one of his best performances to date as Lee, investing him with a palpable world-weariness and making you feel every moment of hope, desire, ecstasy and crushing disappointment. Starkey is excellent too, generating strong chemistry with Craig, but the supporting cast honours are jointly stolen by a portly Jason Schwartzman (as fellow homosexual expat Joe Guidry) and Britain’s own Leslie Manville, whose make-up job as jungle botanist Dr Cotter has to be seen to be believed.”
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