Old News: Daniel Craig
By
July 27, 2011
In Old News, we highlight a piece from Interview‘s past that resonates with the present.
Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens (yes, it’s a space-western; no, it’s not as tongue-in-cheek as one would expect from that title) opens July 29. The film stars Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, and Daniel Craig—an actor still best known for informing audiences that he doesn’t give a damn whether his martinis are shaken or stirred in 2006’s Casino Royale.
Back in 2007, Craig graced the cover of Interview. We dubbed the guy who reinvented James Bond “The Smokin’est Man Alive” and asked his longtime friend, filmmaker and photographer Sam Taylor-Wood, to both photograph the star and interview him. The resulting conversation—a fascinating, wine-soaked, candid dialogue that touches on everything from Craig’s beginnings as “Mr. Marmite” to the wig he wore at the Oscars—is reprinted below.
While the 007 traditionalists were obsessing over the color of his locks, Daniel Craig set about imbuing the Bond franchise with new life—in the process fashioning the most rascally delicious version of the character yet, and earning himself unequivocal heartthrob status. Still, don’t expect a career dominated by car chases and cat-and-mouse games. As the actor reveals here in this candid conversation and these intimate photographs by artist Sam Taylor-Wood, he’s got something much bolder up his sleeve.
After a long day of relentlessly photographing her subject and longtime friend, Sam Taylor-Wood sits down at a local Italian restaurant, London’s Locanda Locatelli, to begin the interview portion of her Daniel Craig story—two hours of intense conversation that included a small portion that went unrecorded (and is therefore not presented here) when she forgot to flip the tape.
SAM TAYLOR-WOOD: My first question was going to be: Do you like clowns?
DANIEL CRAIG: Is that from Angelica [Taylor-Wood’s daughter]?
STW: No. It’s something I find divides people.
DC: Oh. Does Angelica like clowns?
