51-year-old Daniel Craig, the longest serving James Bond, will reportedly have his final feature as ‘007’ unveiled on Thursday. His fifth movie as the British super spy is due for release early next year, 14 years after 2006’s ‘Casino Royale’.
When he was first named in 2005 to succeed Pierce Brosnan as the sixth incarnation of Bond, many questioned whether the blond-haired, blue-eyed, gym-sculpted Craig was the right man for the job. Even Sam Mendes, the director of “Spectre” who also worked with Craig on 2002’s “Road To Perdition”, was initially sceptical. It seemed that 2015’s “Spectre” would be his last outing as Ian Fleming’s super cool intelligence agent. Exhausted by a gruelling shoot, he said he would “rather slash my wrists” than be Bond again.
The actor, who has required surgery on his shoulder and knees over the years due to injuries sustained by doing his own stunts, later said that he had just “needed a break”. But the intensity Craig has brought to the part has allowed the multi-million dollar franchise to be rebooted with a harder, more serious edge.
The late Roger Moore, who played Bond seven times between 1973 and 1985, called Craig the best Bond ever. He told Time magazine that his performances had “guaranteed Bond another 50 years of life”.
“I’m not James Bond,” he once told Esquire magazine. “I’m not particularly brave, I’m not particularly cool-headed.”
He added: “The day I can walk into a pub and someone goes, ‘Oh, there’s Daniel Craig’ and then just leaves me alone, that’ll be great.”
