If you circle back to 2005, Daniel Craig was not immediately a beloved choice to play James Bond. Some fans thought that casting a guy who was 5’10” and had blond hair was in direct defiance of what fans had come to expect from actors playing 007: tall, dark hair, and debonair in a way that Craig, whose most recent picture was the scrappy 2004 gangster picture Layer Cake, seemed to reject. That skepticism disappeared following the release of the acclaimed Casino Royale that showed Craig was the perfect choice for a new era of Bond, not just because he looked different, but because he was given the freedom to be different.
Up until Craig, the character of James Bond had largely settled into a series of predictable tics. There were flashes of a deeper person in the Timothy Dalton movies or in GoldenEye, but largely James Bond was a male power fantasy created in the 1960s and everyone felt they had to do right by Sean Connery‘s interpretation. Bond was meant as pure escapism, which gave him an air of invulnerability. Bond could get punched or have to do incredible stunts, but for a guy who was in frequent gunfights, he was rarely shot or seriously injured. Bond was meant to get into dangerous situations without ever actually being in danger.
Craig was the first Bond actor who had a license to be vulnerable. To be fair, this is also a product of how action movies had evolved and the necessity of the Bond franchise competing with other blockbusters that were moving to cast not just “stars” but serious actors similar to how an acclaimed thespian like Christian Bale could now lead the Batman franchise. In order to sell outsized blockbuster stakes (and as IP became more important than the actor on the marquee), you needed a serious actor who could deliver pathos as well as throwing a convincing punch.
It’s not that previous Bond actors were “bad” as much as Craig was provided with the room, script, and tone to build on the character rather than just saying “Bond. James Bond,” and “Shaken, not stirred.” The Bond we see in Craig’s tenure has to balance being a cold-blooded assassin with not being a total sociopath. The producers realized that for Bond to operate in the 21st century as a hero, it wasn’t enough for him to have lots and lots of sex. The question of Bond’s virility was not in question, and treating women like objects was never a good look, but certainly played as retrograde in the 21st century. Rather than just a guy who gets everything he wants, Bond needed to be challenged and to invest in his relationships rather than smirk them away.
Craig, physically different from the other Bonds and giving a different demeanor to the character, was able to give James Bond a soul. Until this point, Bond wasn’t really a person, and Craig had the difficult task of not just making us want to live vicariously through Bond, but caring about him as an individual. It may seem odd that a character who had been on film since 1962 was as shallow as Bond, but that’s all that audiences really demanded—quips, girls, guns, gadgets, cars, and a silly villain with a convoluted plot. It wasn’t until we were shown that we could have more that the franchise improved.
What Craig brings to the role is pain. For a character marked as invulnerable, Craig’s Bond shines best when he lets you look past those piercing blue eyes and sinewy muscles to see that there’s a deeply damaged individual with a specific set of skills. When you watch Craig play Bond, you get the sense that he works as an assassin not because he enjoys it, but because that’s the hand he was dealt, so he may as well play it as best he can. But whenever he encounters someone who can penetrate his armor, you see that there’s a deeper person there who’s more than his occupation or his libido.
Obviously, not every Daniel Craig Bond movie is great. Quantum of Solace and Spectre both have their issues, but that issue is never Craig. At the very least, he remains a magnetic presence on screen who has a firm handle on how his James Bond differs from previous iterations of the character. But when you get to a film like Casino Royale or Skyfall, you can see how much he brings to the role and why Bond becomes more interesting playing off Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) or M (Judi Dench), respectively. When the next actor finally takes over the role, he won’t just have decades of the character’s legacy to contend with. He’ll also have to find a way to get out from the large shadow cast by Craig’s terrific performance.
Read more about No Time to Die:
‘No Time to Die’ to ‘Skyfall’: Daniel Craig’s James Bond Films, Ranked
Let’s Talk about That ‘No Time to Die’ Ending
7 Movies Like ‘No Time To Die’ to Watch For More Spectacular Spy Stories
‘No Time to Die’: Daniel Craig and the Filmmakers Discuss the Shocking Ending
What Did Danny Boyle’s Version of ‘No Time to Die’ Look Like?
Daniel Craig and Lashana Lynch on ‘No Time to Die’ and Which of Them Is the Better 007
Every Daniel Craig Bond Villain, Ranked
How to Watch the James Bond Movies in Order (Chronologically and by Release Date)
How to Watch ‘No Time to Die’: Is the New Bond Movie Streaming or In Theaters?
