Daniel Craig`s daughter is proud of her dad`s performance as 007

Notoriously private Daniel Craig has revealed his daughter is proud of his new role as James Bond - reports the Daily Record.

While many 007 fans have been outrageously spiteful at the choice of Daniel as the super-spy in new film Casino Royale - Ella, 14, can't wait.

He never usually talks publicly about the girl he had with his ex-wife, Scottish actress Fiona Loudon.

Ella and Fiona live in London, and Daniel knows his new role, which will make him a household name throughout the world, means his private life will be under more scrutiny than ever.

Daniel, 38, said: "Ella's proud of me being James Bond. I think she's comfortable with it. I try to communicate all the time about it. I'm very happy with the film, but I want to protect her.

"I don't bring her up in conversations much because the more I talk about her the more the Press have a right to take those photographs."

But he added: "I think she is eager to see the film."

Not since George Lazenby has an actor been so vilified for playing Bond - and Daniel hasn't even been seen by most film fans in the role yet.

Early reviews of the 21st Bond movie have named him as the best 007 since Sean Connery.

But, last year, when Daniel was revealed as the actor taking over from Pierce Brosnan, there was a fierce internet debate, with fans trying to do what no Bond baddie has done - get rid of him.

There were claims he felt seasick when he arrived on a speedboat for the London announcement. Also, it was said he didn't care for martinis, didn't like guns and couldn't drive.

Then came the fact he was too short (he's 5ft 11, hardly vertically challenged like Tom Cruise) had big ears, and the biggest no-no, that he was the first Blond Bond.

Daniel, knowing the critics who've seen the film are impressed by the gritty, more violent themes, said: "The internet is a wonderful voice piece for people to use, and I'm a great believer in it. But it's a place where I can't enter into a debate, because people are entitled to their own opinions. It's democracy. All I can say is, go and see the movie.

"There's a passion about this, because people take it very close to their heart, as they have grown up with James Bond - so have I. "I was being criticised before I had presented anything, so it was name calling.

"I just had to be quiet and say, forget it. I can't think about it. I have to move forward and concentrate on getting this job right. But Daniel admitted that the backlash and criticism did get to him. He said: "It kind of affected me in a way. However prepared I was for it, I couldn't have seen that coming."

He added that he relied on his friends and family to spur him on. "That's what friends are for. If I do a piece, then the opinions of my friends and family mean a lot to me," he said.

And Daniel claimed he never thought about dyeing his hair.

He laughed: "Never for one second did I think about dyeing my hair. My hair was not an issue. The only thing I thought was that we're going to cut it short and I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to be thinking about what's on top of my head.

"Hopefully now it's not an issue. Hopefully people don't see it now. Hopefully I've got other things to offer than hair colour."

His friends may call him Mr Potato Head, but Daniel's charisma is undeniable.

Not only does he have a powerful screen presence but, with his rugged good looks, he has been lucky enough to romance stunning women such as Love Actually actress Heike Makatsch, his former girlfriend of seven years, supermodel Kate Moss, whom he briefly dated, and actress Sienna Miller.

On screen, he has filmed love scenes with some of Hollywood's most beautiful women, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sienna Miller.

Playing Bond means spending a lot of time between the sheets on camera.

Revealing a typical English sense of humour, Daniel said: "Love scene, oh, they're just momentous. They are usually cold studios with 15 people watching. I don't get off on that. What else can you do, you sort of cover up and sit and drink tea. Talk about the weather."

His main Bond girl in Casino Royale is played by French beauty Eva Green, who starred in The Dreamers and Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

"I don't know if they listened but I did talk about Eva being cast," said Daniel. "Eva just has amystery about her, and that was what was needed. She has something going on, and those are key elements in a movie."

And Daniel also gets to grips with gorgeous Italian actress Caterina Murino, who makes her entrance in a beach scene that carries more than a hint of Ursula Andress in Dr No.

Daniel's Bond is said to have more of the brooding intensity of Sean Connery or Timothy Dalton rather than the light-hearted Bonds of Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.

He battles evil villain Le Chiffre, played by respected Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.

In his films, Daniel, best known for Brit gangster flick Layer Cake, excels at playing dark characters who have violent outbursts, from Francis Bacon's petty criminal gay lover in Love is the Devil, to a rogue gangster in Road to Perdition, an assassin priest in Elizabeth and passionate poet Ted Hughes in Sylvia.

Daniel confirmed that the new film is "darker". And it's younger too.

He added: "We go back to the beginning. We meet this person for the first time, we're obviously suspending belief. He is a raw character. He's someone who's extensively violent.

"He's not out for revenge, he's out for justice.

"But he meets someone who he falls in love with and we have a huge love story. There's a great card sequence with him, and he gets his heart broken because he gets double crossed.

"It creates this person who is no longer emotional, but he is actually going to go out for revenge, which you'll see right at the end of the movie.

"The bad guys are not politically or religiously affiliated. They represent themselves individually, and a network of people who are trying to destabilise the world's economy so they can take as much as they can."

Chester-born Daniel will certainly look the part as British super spy 007.

He worked on a tough physical regime to get in shape for Casino Royale, based on Ian Fleming's first book, and which is directed by Martin Campbell, who steered Brosnan to box-office glory with his first Bond movie, Golden Eye, a decade ago.

Pictures of Daniel looking buff coming out of the water in a pair of natty blue trunks had women's magazines all hot and bothered.

But does he have girls throwing themselves at him now?

He joked: "I have my girlfriend throwing herself at me occasionally.

"But it's not like I was trying to be sexy. I had to get fit because I had to be able to do stunts.

"I thought the only way to do that was to work out and get fit and buff and get physically into shape.

"Thank God I did, because I did as many of the stunts that I could - I got injured, I got hurt but I never missed a day of filming."

But it's usually Bond girls who we see enigmatically emerging from the water.

Daniel laughed: "Ursula Andress was before me. It was a little homage."

"I did a lot of weights. I wanted to bulk up quickly and so I had a lot of high protein diets and that sort of thing.

"By the time we got to the Bahamas, we kind of peaked, and that's where you see me walking out of the water. That was the peak of it, but we then kind of balanced it out."

Knowing he had to deliver a good Bond took its toll, and Daniel made sure he got drunk once aweek to unwind.

He said: "One night a week I drank myself stupid, which was important, otherwise I don't think I could have gotten through the film. I had to separate myself from the movie at least once a week and eat anything, eat cream cakes and just pig out."

Brosnan used to claim that the first film he saw in a cinema was a Bond movie.

Daniel played the same card. He explained: "When I went to the cinema for the first time it was Roger Moore's Live and Let Die. But Sean Connery defined the role. One of my favourite movies is From Russia with Love, particularly because it's with Robert Shaw. He plays the bad guy, and he's blond."

Daniel, who has signed a three-picture deal to play Bond, claims that he hasn't given it much thought yet.

He added: "If this does well, then I'll be making money. I'd love to have the money to buy art. I don't have an Aston Martin either, but I'd like one."

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