Making movies is a lot of fun, but it’s also exhausting. When you’re playing someone like James Bond, the role is as physically demanding as it is mentally taxing. As the actor playing the iconic superspy, not only do you strive to satisfy audiences, but you also want to contribute your own spin to the character’s legacy. Daniel Craig, while thrilled to play James Bond for several films on the big screen, is not shy to admit that the job of playing Bond is challenging. He’s considered abandoning the character several times, but ultimately decided to stick it out. Still, when he was done filming 2006’s Casino Royale, he approached Barbara Broccoli about killing off the character at the end of his run. Now, a video clip of Craig talking about his proposal to Broccoli is making the rounds again.
Craig goes for the kill
In the clip, Daniel Craig says he asked to kill James Bond while driving away from the Casino Royale premiere. According to Craig, while driving with Broccoli away from the premiere, he became exasperated while thinking about how many more Bond films he was contracted for. Almost jokingly, he asked Broccoli if he could kill 007 at the end of his tenure, and surprisingly, she agreed. Whether she thought he was serious remains a mystery, but as we all know, Craig got his wish when Bond took a dirt nap at the end of 2021’s No Time to Die.
My two cents
A lot of armchair analysts in the comments are insulted by Craig’s cavalier attitude toward offing the beloved character, but I’m on Craig’s side. First of all, he could have requested it in jest, not thinking for one second that Broccoli would agree. Second, as someone who speaks with actors one-on-one for a living and visits movie sets frequently, your perspective about the movie-making process changes. Actors, crew, and everyone else involved in filmmaking work their asses off. In addition to making the film, you’ve got exhausting promotional tours, time away from friends and family, fan backlash, and countless other deterrents working against you. It’s not unheard of to want your character to go out in a blaze of glory, regardless of how iconic they are. You can disagree. That’s fine. I’m offering some perspective. At the end of the day, Craig dedicated 15 years to playing the character. As someone who enjoyed Craig’s run as Bond, I’m good and ready to move on.
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