When No Time To Die arrives in 2020, Daniel Craig will be the longest-standing James Bond – not by number of films, but having played the part for 14 years since Casino Royale. Considering how beloved Craig’s incarnation of the character is now, it’s hard to remember a time when there were campaigns against him being 007. Speaking to Empire for the upcoming world exclusive No Time To Die issue, Craig revealed the line in the Casino Royale script that made him sign on in the first place – one that signalled a significant shift from the Pierce Brosnan era.
“One of the biggest reasons I did Casino Royale is the line, ‘A vodka martini, please.’ ‘Shaken or stirred?’ My reply was written in the script as, ‘Do I look like I give a fuck?’ And that’s it. That’s the reason I did it,” says Craig. “Because what I could not do, and what I refused to do, was repeat what had gone before. What was the fucking point? So I’d rather have just one and gone, ‘Okay, swing and a miss. There you go. Tried my best.’”
Of course, it was far from a ‘swing and a miss’ – with Craig now returning for his fifth and final Bond movie. Inside the magazine are brand new interviews with Craig, director Cary Joji Fukunaga, Bond boss Barbara Broccoli, and series newcomers Lashana Lynch and Rami Malek. Plus we have exclusive images, and globetrotting on-set access to Bond’s long-awaited comeback. Pick up a copy on newsstands from Friday 27 December.
