Daniel Craig has been a busy boy. When James Bond 23 went into limbo due to MGM’s financial woes, Craig has been in a holding pattern as far as starring in features. But this year he changes all that with this summer’s Cowboys & Aliens, and following that tentpole release with Dream House, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.
Recently, Esquire magazine‘s Tom Chiarella chatted with 007 about his recent projects including what’s happening with James Bond 23. Here are some choice cuts from the interview:
Regarding Bond 23:
“No-no-no, Sam’s gonna do it, Sam Mendes, and I’m really fucking really lookin’ forward to the fact that he’s gonna do it,” he says, snapping to. Mendes directed him in the gloomy thriller Road to Perdition in 2002. Craig tricks out a little smirk then. A concession, a comfort maybe.
Daniel Craig, though partaking in a popcorn feature that includes cowboys and aliens, is serious when it comes to making movie for adults. And when he speaks of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo you know he means it.
“It’s as adult as you can possibly make it. This is adult drama. I grew up, as we fucking all did, watching The Godfather and that, movies that were made for adults. And this is a $100 million R-rated movie. Nobody makes those anymore. And Fincher, he’s not holding back. They’ve given him free rein. He showed me some scenes recently, and my hand was over my mouth, going, Are you fucking serious?”
He raises his eyes, looks upward to describe what he saw in a set of Fincher’s dailies that startled him this way. You can imagine — the book contains sodomy and torture chambers and lighting people on fire. And yet, “it’s not that he simply showed me footage that was horribly graphic,” Craig says. “It was stuff that was happening, or had happened. And somehow you don’t see it.”
What’s that mean?
This is the adult thing: to not be obvious about it. “There’s more than one way to sense violence,” he says. “Much more powerful ways than seeing it step-by-step.”
Upcoming for Daniel Craig is The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, an animated feature that is a first for Spielberg and Craig.
“We shot it in mo-cap. Which is like: Fuck me, I’m literally in a leotard with a fucking helmet on, and a camera strapped to it. It’s Steven Spielberg, so every fucker in the world comes to visit. Fincher comes to visit. Clint fucking Eastwood comes to visit. It was just like, are you kidding me? I’m gonna meet these people dressed like this? Playing a pirate, wearing a leotard and a camera? Really?”
