Daniel Craig on 007 - I want to find Bond`s dark side

The paparazzi waiting outside Manhattan's Regency Hotel for Daniel Craig surge forward as a black SUV pulls up. But when the occupant emerges, they look disappointed. "It's only Britney Spears," says one. When Craig later hears the story he laughs at his sudden elevation to superstar celebrity status. "That's incredible," he says. "I'll remember that."

It's a confirmation that any doubts about the popularity and suitability of Craig as the new James Bond have dissipated, following London and New York screenings at the weekend of his 007 debut, in Casino Royale - reports The Telegraph.

Craig himself is cheerful and upbeat, clearly pleased with the early reaction. He has signed on for two more Bond films, and he feels he has proved his point to the fans who were furiously opposed to him and who lambasted him for being blond, having blue eyes and being too short. Once filming began, there were reports that he could not drive the new Aston Martin, that his teeth got knocked out in a fight scene, and he suffered from sunburn in the Bahamas – not one of which was completely accurate.

"I was affected by it – of course I was," he admits. "What bothered me was that I was being criticised before I had done the work. I wasn't going to get into an argument with these people, so my only response was, 'See the movie and then you have the right to criticise, but first see what I am trying to do.

"It strengthened my resolve. I was hurt by it, but it just made me try harder. The pressure was there. I know a lot of people feel very passionate about the Bond movies, but so do I, so I just got on with it. What I tried to achieve was just making a movie people will want to go and see, and I think we have made a great movie.

"One of the things I was criticised for was that I looked like a bad guy, but I was happy with that because I think true good guys have to step into the dark side to do their job. I wanted people to question Bond's morals and his judgment."

Craig was in a supermarket in Baltimore, where he was filming The Visiting with Nicole Kidman, when he received the telephone call that was to change his life. It was from Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, who told him: "It's over to you, kiddo." He quickly added a bottle of Grey Goose vodka to his basket and then, he recalls, "I went and got blindingly drunk on vodka martinis."

But it was not the first time he had been offered the role. He had been approached about a year earlier and had turned it down flat.

"I walked away because there was no script, and I didn't know if I was ready to be James Bond," he says. "But then later Barbara Broccoli made me an offer I couldn't refuse, which was a great script. And I didn't want to be sitting down in five years' time regretting not doing it. It could have been a poisoned chalice if it hadn't worked out, but then so could most big decisions."

Craig, 38, who was born in Chester and brought up in Hoylake, near Liverpool, is undoubtedly the most qualified actor of the five who have played James Bond. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and later graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He made his film debut in the 1992 coming-of-age drama The Power of One, and became known through playing a hapless musician turned homeless person in the BBC serial Our Friends in the North.

He made the jump to Hollywood in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, and played a hitman in The Road to Perdition. He was Ted Hughes, opposite Gwyneth Paltrow, in Sylvia, caused a stir in the unsettling erotic drama The Mother and co-starred with Keira Knightley and Adrien Brody in The Jacket. But it was his role as a cocaine dealer in Layer Cake that started the Bond rumours flowing. Meanwhile, Steven Spielberg cast him in Munich, and he is about to appear as Perry Smith, one of the two In Cold Blood killers interviewed by Truman Capote in Infamous.

An intense and dedicated actor, Craig realised that if he wanted to be a convincing Bond he would have to get in top shape; so he spent several hours each day in the gym, a regime he continued in the evenings during the six months the film was shooting in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas and Venice.

He watched every Bond movie at least twice and read all Ian Fleming's Bond books. "I didn't want to miss a trick," he said, "but then I pushed it all behind me because I wanted to take it in a new direction and move forward with it. That responsibility was very, very strong in my mind."

His favourite films are Dr No and From Russia With Love and he has no doubt about his favourite Bond actor. "Sean Connery set and defined the character," he says. "He did something extraordinary with that role. He was bad, sexy, animalistic and stylish, and it is because of him I am here today."

After he was cast, he contacted Connery. "I wanted Sean Connery's approval and he sent me messages of support, which meant a lot to me."

Filming of Casino Royale was long, gruelling and occasionally brutal. "I wanted to do as much of the action work as I could, so that the audience can see it's me and it's real," he said. "I feel like I became a sportsman of sorts, and that meant acquiring injuries and carrying on and bashing through to the next level of pain. Although the stunt team did fantastic work to make sure that everything was as safe as possible, if you don't get bruised playing Bond, you're not doing it properly.

"I had black eyes, I had cuts, I was bruised, I had muscle strains, and I took a lot of painkillers. But it was part of the job. As much as I was hurt, the stuntmen were in much more pain."

He has The Visiting awaiting release, and he is currently working with Kidman again on His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. Then it will be back to Bond – and he is aware that he could forever be associated with the role of 007.

"I hope it's going to be liberating," he said. "I'm not putting any negative spin on this because to be typecast as James Bond is a very high-class problem for an actor, and I'm certainly going to try to get as much out of it as I can. Of course I am always going to think about whether it is going to limit what I do.

"I plan for it not to, but if it does, I'll approach that problem when it comes."

Thanks to `lorna99` for the alert.

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