Bond on Blanc. Daniel Craig, who recently completed principal photography on his fifth and final adventure as 007, the 25th in the iconic EON series, has spoken about the ups and downs of being in the public eye as an actor, but has also said he still loves his job.
In an interview given to the UK’s national ‘i’ newspaper to help publicise his new comedy whodunnit Knives Out just prior to its UK cinema release, the James Bond star also revealed some of the sources and inspiration he drew on to play the film’s renowned private eye Benoit Blanc: ‘I stole everything’, Craig quipped. ‘You name it, I nicked it’.
He continued: ‘I watched Columbo religiously, so I stole from him, and I stole from Miss Marple and Kojack. I loved them all’. The current 007 also explained: ‘I remember my sister and I going to see both Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, it was just so entertaining’.
The new film, under the helm of writer-director Rian Johnson (whose previous storylines have included Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Looper), certainly appealed to Craig’s fascination with detectives: ‘When I read Rian’s script, I recognised the influences immediately’, he said in reference to those 1970s detective shows he watched while growing up in Cheshire in England: ‘He wasn’t trying to hide it’.
In fact, Craig was the first to sign on to the movie, and was quickly followed by an all-star cast, which includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Don Johnson and Ana de Armas (who will, of course, also be one of Craig’s co-stars in No Time To Die).
Reflecting more generally on the film industry and on the pressures and pitfalls of fame, Craig also commented to the ‘i’ newspaper: ‘It takes a long time to get your head round. Becoming famous is disturbing, a shock to the system, and learning to remember why you do the job can take… well, it’s taken me 20 years’. Craig added: ‘But, hand on my heart, I can say I love my job more now than I’ve ever done’.
For those Bond fans waiting patiently for the eagerly anticipated new 007 movie, due to hit our cinema screens in April, 2020, Craig’s role in Knives Out is a not-to-be-missed pre-Bond 25 performance, demonstrating once again what a versatile and great actor he can be. The new film, which is described as a ‘murder mystery with a twist’, was released in UK cinemas on Wednesday, November 27th, 2019.
Craig and the Bond Women at the Bond 25 launch event in Jamaica: Ana de Armas stands to his right.