Don’t ask Daniel Craig to make any predictions about your life span. The former James Bond actor said he was already thinking of the death of his character shortly after he made his debut as 007 in 2006’s Casino Royale.
In a new interview with the Sunday Times he said he initially thought he would star in one film in the franchise. He discussed his thoughts with producer Barbara Broccoli at the time.
“I was driving away from the Berlin premiere of Casino Royale with Barbara Broccoli. I had genuinely thought I would do one Bond movie, then it would be over. But by then we knew we had a hit on our hands,” he said. “’I realised the enormity of it, so I said to Barbara, ‘How many more? Three? Four?’ She said, ‘Four!’ I said, ‘OK. Then can I kill him off?’ She said, ‘Yes.’”
However, he’d go on to starring in five films for the franchise — Casino Royale, 2008’s Quantum of Solace, Skyfall in 2012 and 2015’s Spectre, alongside his (and Bond’s) final bow, 2021’s No Time to Die.
As they worked on the last film, Craig said, “’This is it. I don’t want to do any more.’ If we kill Bond, we can begin again. I think Barbara thought that, too.
“But, bless them, the studio, MGM, were, like, ‘What are you talking about? Are you out of your minds?’ There was reluctance. So we had to do it in secret, really.”
Craig returns as Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which had a limited theatrical release in November, on Dec. 23 via Netflix.
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