Daniel Craig needed his Bond to die so he could move forward: ‘I don’t want to go back’
As the first hour of his new Netflix series The Return of Daniel Craig was ending, the actor was about to return to Bond.
The British actor, who has not played the iconic spy since 2013’s Spectre, will take over for Daniel Craig as the latest installment in the franchise. The franchise, which has endured for nearly 50 years and spans from Ian Fleming’s novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to the first 007 007 movie in 1964, is known for its high-stakes adventure.
In a new interview, Craig told Variety the goal is to not have it be just a “futuristic adventure” but to make it “something that feels real” and to “make it something that Daniel Craig can go home to at some point in the future.” He also spoke about his new project, and Bond, in general, and his time in the character, a subject he addressed more than once during the interview.
The actor said he wants to “take it back” and to “let the characters do what they want to do.” In the interview, Craig also talks about why he chose to take on the role of Bond, his Bond movie experience, the role of women on the set, and whether or not his experience shooting GoldenEye and Casino Royale impacted his opinion of the franchise.
Here’s a lightly edited transcript of the complete interview.
On his new show project
“When I first met with Netflix my pitch was based on the idea of a Bond movie that was based almost solely on a single, iconic moment in the character’s life. That was my pitch to them: Let’s make it just on a single moment in Bond’s life. That was really the beginning of it. But it really blossomed into this. I wanted to make it something that feels real. That feels like Bond is still there; he’
