The unpredictable life story of James Bond!
Daniel Craig recently turned 54, and his life story is like a movie. He is now one of the highest paid actors, and he managed to win his wife over after 16 years.
Daniel Craig's life changed drastically when he got the role of James Bond. Until ‘Casino Royale’, a film about the famous James Bond agent was not released 16 years ago, Daniel Craig starred in several films, including the one ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Rider’, starring Angelina Jolie, but he gained international fame only with the role of agent 007.
Daniel Craig was born on March 2, 1968, in the English city of Chester in the family of his father Tim, who worked in the ironworks, and his mother Carol, an art professor. After their divorce, Daniel moved to Liverpool with his older sister Leo and mother who remarried.
‘I left Chester and I was terribly depressed. At 16, I went to London for the summer and slept on the floor with a friend until I was kicked out. I had no money. Mom gave me a few hundred pounds and I somehow managed to push through to make my dream come true. It was a really terrible time, but my mother was by my side and helped me as much as she could,' Craig recalled of a difficult childhood. Since his mother often visited the theater, Daniel was also attracted to acting. He started acting at the age of 14, in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in a local high school production.
‘I’ve always wanted to be an actor. I arrogantly believed that I could not be anything else, ' he said on one occasion, recalling his teenage years.
In the following years, he became more and more interested in acting, and less and less in school, so he left it at the age of 16. He auditioned at the National Youth Theater and moved to London. After being admitted, he debuted on stage as Agamemnon in Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus and Cressida’. Although he had a job, like all actors at the beginning of his career, he was not well paid so the bills sometimes had to wait.
For decades before he got the role of the famous agent, Craig could not even dream of what kind of career would bring a smile to his face. He had his first notable television engagement in 1996 in the series 'Our Friends in the North'. Critics increasingly praised his acting skills for the role.
However, more than talent, his physical appearance began to come to the fore. He was declared a sex symbol, and people admired him for his handsome and sculpted body.
This was followed by several roles in which he upgraded his status as a talented actor, such as the role in the film ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Ryder’, and only at the age of 38 did he get the role of a lifetime. However, not everything went smoothly.
When he appeared at the casting for the film ' Casino Royale’ Craig’s status was questionable because he did not physically fit the type of lead actor described in Ian Fleming’s novels. In addition to being blonde, and until then Bond was played by renowned actors like Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan, who are more than 185 centimeters tall, Craig is only 178 centimeters tall, which is why his engagement was questionable. Even the actor himself did not consider the potential engagement the highlight of his career, but producer Barbara Broccoli wanted him for the role.
‘When Broccoli called me to tell me I got the role, she found me buying dishwashing pills. Then I dropped them and went to buy a bottle of vodka, ' he recalled with a laugh. 'I got the role and eventually exceeded all expectations - $ 594 million at the box office,' Craig added.
Interestingly, until his first role in the movie about the famous agent, he never tasted a martini, a drink that Bond celebrated.
‘It’s amazing how many times I’ve sat like this at interviews, it would usually be in the morning and someone would send me a martini. Seriously? Well, it's 11 o'clock, I'm fine, but thank you, I won't drink it so early, ' he said in an interview after filming' Casino Royale '.
Daniel Craig was so praised by the profession and critics that he repeated the same role in four more sequels, including ‘Grain of Consolation’, ‘Skyfall’ and ‘Specter’. It was with the film 'Skyfall' that he surpassed all 22 previous James Bond films.
It grossed more than $ 1 billion at the box office and became the seventh highest-grossing film of all time and the highest-grossing film in the Secret Agent series.
