Daniel Craig
ALL ABOUT DANIEL CRAIG
Full Name: Daniel Wroughton Craig
Date of Birth: 2 March 1968
Place of Birth: Chester, Cheshire, England, UK
Spouse: Fiona Loudon (1992 - 1994)(divorced) 1 child
Family: Father - Tim Craig, Father - Olivia Craig, Sister - Lea Craig
Bio:
Daniel Wroughton Craig (born March 2, 1968) is an English actor.
He was born in Chester, the son of a steel erector and art teacher. He was brought up in Prescot, near Liverpool. He also attended Hilbre High School, West Kirby (near Liverpool) and played rugby at nearby Hoylake Rugby Club. He moved to London when he was 16 to join the National Youth Theatre, later securing a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Craig’s film career began with The Power of One in 1992, and he later gained wider recognition in the UK with a co-starring role in the critically-acclaimed BBC2 drama serial Our Friends in the North in 1996. He raised his profile in the United States in Sam Mendes’ movie Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks as a weaselly murderer who hides behind his mobster father’s shadow, Sylvia with Gwyneth Paltrow, and Enduring Love with Rhys Ifans.
On October 9, 2005 the News of the World revealed that Craig had been having a liaison with Sienna Miller, his co-star in Layer Cake. Miller had recently been engaged to Jude Law, who had previously had an affair with his children’s nanny in July. Craig’s latest role was as a Jewish, South African-born Mossad agent in Steven Spielberg’s controversial political thriller, Munich, in 2005.
Daniel Craig as James BondAs early as February 2005, Craig had been named in the media as a possible contender to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. On April 6, 2005 Craig was reported to have been signed by EON Productions as part of a three-film contract worth £15 million [1], however, this news was later debunked by the BBC [2] who contacted EON for an official report. According to Craig, MGM offered him the role but the Broccoli family never got in touch with him.
Finally, on October 14, 2005, Eon Productions named Daniel Craig as the sixth actor to portray 007, taking over from Pierce Brosnan. Craig signed a three-film contract, with the first, Casino Royale, to begin filming in January of 2006 with an expected release of November 17, 2006. The announcement was made at noon in London at HMS President, a Royal Naval Reserve station at St Katharine Docks, on the banks of the River Thames downstream of Tower Bridge.
Born the year after the release of You Only Live Twice, Craig is the first James Bond actor to be born after the start of the film series. Much media attention has also been given to him for being the “blondest” official Bond actor.
Trivia:
On June 19, 2007 Daniel was one of 115 people to be admitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which is the group who’s members vote on Academy Award nomination ballots.
Veteran Bond girl Honour Blackman has praised new 007 Daniel Craig’s performance in Casino Royale.
In the annual GQ list of stylish celebrities (2007), Daniel Craig has been named the best-dressed man in Britain.
The British Home Office have granted a real passport to actor Daniel Craig under the name of his 007 character JAMES BOND.
Craig was previously married to British actress Fiona Loudon.
Sienna Miller and Daniel had a brief relationship in 2004 after they finished shooting ‘Layer Cake’.
His height is 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
Following the 2007 Oscars, it was revealed that Daniel had hired two body doubles as he was nervous that an obsessed female fan would turn up and harass him. The fan, from New Orleans, has been following Daniel’s moves whenever he is in the USA, and even threatened to handcuff herself to him if she got near him at either the Academy Awards or the Vanity Fair after-show party.
In January 2007, Daniel Craig admitted that his co-star in the films The Invasion and The Golden Compass, Nicole Kidman, turns him on.
In December 2006, Daniel was voted the world’s sexiest man in a poll conducted by condom maker Durex, after showing off his
toned muscles in Casino Royale.
Craig says that in real life, he’s not like Bond or the unnamed drug dealer he plays in Layer Cake.
He was the first blond James Bond.
His upcoming James Bond movie is called Casino Royale.
Craig will be the 6th James Bond.
He officially accepted the James Bond role in October, 2005.
In 2000 he was named as one of European films ‘Shooting Stars’ by European Film Promotion
His favorite icecream flavor is vanilla.
In his spear time he really enjoyes doing nothing.
He would like to bring more emotional depth to the character of James Bond.
His breakthrough as an actor came with the role of Geordie Peacock in the TV series Our Friends in the North.
Some of his earlyest work includes minor roles in the TV shows Boon, Heartbeat and Drop the Dead Donkey.
Daniel is four years younger than Pierce Brosnan was when he agreed to become Bond.
Daniel has a daughter from an earlier marriage to a fellow actor.
Ewan McGregor and Joseph Fiennes were his fellow students at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
He is Pierce Brosnan’s successor as the Next James Bond.
He had a short but very public affair with super model Kate Moss.
Quotes:
“I go through life thinking it’s all going to end tomorrow.”
“I don’t believe in self-promotion, really I can’t be arsed.”
“People always say, ‘That stuff you did in Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998) must have been difficult….but I say, ‘No, it wasn’t really: that was some of the easier stuff to do,’ because it was always clear and made a lot of sense. It’s when things are unclear and when you don’t know what you’re doing- that’s when things are difficult.”
“I always wanted to be an actor. I had the arrogance to believe I couldn’t be anything else.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I want to be nowhere else. It’s difficult in film because everybody wants to make a safe bet with roles. But if you are going to do stuff then you should be getting strong reactions. I don’t want audiences to be going, ‘Yeah, that’s all right.’”
“It’s something else. I’m speechless. I’ve just got to step up to the plate and deal with it. I had a confidence about it but then that’s because of the people around me who made me feel good about it. I knew positively on Monday. I was in Baltimore when I took the call. My first reaction was I needed a drink.”
“I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other. That’s a simple fact. I’ve seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that’s what’s scary about them.”
“I kind of feel that if you look at the track record of most Bonds - I mean Sean Connery obviously defined the part, and even he struggled for a while to get rid of the mantle. That’s the pitfall and it could happen to me. I’ve been working so hard, for however long it is I’ve been doing this, to try and stick to doing stuff I totally believe in and that would be wiped out. I thought, God, this is all right: I’m doing what I want to do. And that was a huge weight off my shoulders.”
“I just wanted to see him make a few mistakes. I want to make the audience believe that it’s all going to go wrong and then when it goes right it’s much more exciting. Every day you pick up an injury and you’re battered and bruised. If you’re not physically fit then it’s difficult to get through. I’m a Bond fan. If I go and see a Bond movie there are certain things I think should be in it. And they’re there. We’ve got them in spades. Nobody knows more than I do how important this is, and it’s my job to get it right.”
[On the backlash from Bond fans]: “I didn’t expect this backlash. You take it in, you can’t help it. I’ve been trying to give 110 per cent since the beginning but after all the fuss, maybe I started giving 115 per cent.”
“If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me - which, sadly, I have done - it would
drive me insane.” - interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine.
“They hate me. They don’t think I’m right for the role. It’s as simple as that. They’re passionate about it, which I understand, but I do wish they’d reserve judgment.” - interview with Entertainment Weekly magazine.
“I hope it’s going to be liberating. 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.”
“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. 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.”
“I was affected by it - of course I was. What bothered me was that I was being criticized 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 criticize, 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 criticized 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.”
“Sean Connery set and defined the character. He did something extraordinary with that role. He was bad, sexy, animalistic and stylish, and it is because of him I am here today. I wanted Sean Connery’s approval and he sent me messages of support, which meant a lot to me.”
Filmography:
Daniel Craig Filmography as an Actor:
2008 Bond 22
2008 Defiance
2007 The Invasion
2007 The Golden Compass
2006 Renaissance
2006 Infamous
2006 Casino Royale
2005 The Jacket
2005 Munich
2005 Archangel
2005 Fateless
2004 Layer Cake
2004 Enduring Love
2003 Sylvia
2003 The Mother
2002 Copenhagen
2002 Road to Perdition
2002 Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
2001 Sword of Honour
2001 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
2000 Some Voices
2000 Hotel Splendide
2000 I Dreamed of Africa
1999 Love & Rage
1999 The Trench
1998 Elizabeth
1998 The Ice House
1998 Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
1997 Obsession
1996 Moll Flanders
1996 Kiss and Tell
1995 A Kid in King Arthur’s Court
1993 Sharpe’s Eagle
1992 The Power of One
Daniel Craig Awards:
British Academy Awards
2006 Best Actor Casino Royale
Independent Spirit Award
2006 Best Supporting Actor Infamous
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