Daniel Craig

Date of Birth
2 March 1968, Chester, Cheshire, England, UK

Birth Name
Daniel Wroughton Craig

Height
5' 10" (1.78 m)

Mini Biography

Daniel Craig, one of British theatre's most famous faces who was waiting tables as a struggling teenage actor with the NYT, is now starring as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006).

He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on March 2, 1968, at 41 Liverpool Road, Chester, Cheshire, England. His father, Tim Craig, was a merchant seaman turned steel erector, then became landlord of 'Ring O' Bells' pub in Frodsham, Cheshire. His mother, Carol Olivia Craig, was an art teacher. His parents split up in 1972, and young Daniel Craig was raised with his older sister, Lea, in Liverpool, then in Hoylake, Wirral, in the home of his mother. His interest in acting was encouraged by visits to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre arranged by his mother. From the age of 6, Craig started acting in school plays, making his debut in the Frodsham Primary School production of Oliver!, and his mother was the driving force behind his artistic aspirations. The first Bond movie he ever saw at the cinema was Roger Moore's Live and Let Die (1973); young Daniel Craig saw it with his father, so it took a special place in his heart. He was also a good athlete and was a rugby player at Hoylake Rugby Club.

At the age of 14 Craig played roles in 'Oliver', 'Romeo and Juliet', and 'Cinderella' at Hilbre High School in West Kirby, Wirral, UK. He left Hilbre High at 16 to audition at the National Youth Theatre's (NYT) troupe on their tour in Manchester in 1984. He was accepted and moved down to London. There his mother and father watched his stage debut as Agamemnon in Shakespeare's 'Troilus And Cressida'. As a struggling actor with the NYT, he was toiling in restaurant kitchens and as a waiter. Craig performed with NYT on tours to Valencia, Spain, and to Moscow, Russia, under the leadership of director 'Edward Wilson' . He failed at repeated auditions at the Guildhall, but eventually his persistence paid off, and in 1988, he entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican. There he studied alongside Ewan McGregor and Alistair McGowan , then later Damian Lewis and Joseph Fiennes , among others. He graduated in 1991, after a three-year course under the tutelage of Colin McCormack , the actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1992-1994 he was married to Scottish actress Fiona Loudon, their daughter, named Ella, was born in 1992.

Daniel Craig made his film debut in The Power of One (1992). His film career continued on television, notably the BBC2 serial 'Our Friends in the North' (1996). He shot to international fame after playing supporting roles in 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' (2001) and Road to Perdition (2002). He was nominated for his performances in the leading role in Layer Cake (2004), and received other awards and nominations. Craig was named as the sixth actor to portray James Bond, in October of 2005, weeks after he finished his work in Munich (2005), where he co-starred with Eric Bana under the directorship of Steven Spielberg .

Craig's reserved demeanor and his avoidance of the showbiz-party-red-carpet milieu makes him a cool 007. He is the first blonde actor to play Bond, and also the first to be born after the start of the film series, and also the first to be born after the death of the author Ian Fleming in 1964. Four of the past Bond actors: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan have indicated that Craig is a good choice as Bond.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov

Spouse
Fiona Loudon (1992 - 1994) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

Lived in London with German actress Heike Makatsch. [April 2001]

He has a daughter, Ella Craig (born 1992), who lives with his ex-wife 'Fiona Loudon' in London.

2000: Named as one of European films 'Shooting Stars' by European Film Promotion.

He was nominated for a 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Number at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs.

One of the many actors considered to take over James Bond from Pierce Brosnan. He officially accepted the role in October, 2005.

Was the last actor considered for the role of "Rorschach" in the movie adaptation of Alan Moore's comic-book mini-series, Watchmen (2009).

Father: Tim Craig

Mother: Olivia Craig

Older sister: Lea Craig

He is a good friend of supermodel Kate Moss.

Visited Sarajevo Film Festival (in post-war Bosnia) in 2005.

Esquire magazine's "Best dressed male" in 2006

Was the only member of the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) cast to be a huge fan of the Tomb Raider video games. His favorite in the series was Tomb Raider II (1997) (VG), released in 1997.

His girlfriend Satsuki Mitchell accompanied him to the world premiere of Casino Royale (2006) in London. It was their first public appearance together.

He's a fan of Liverpool Football Club.

He is the first Bond actor to have been born after the Bond series began.

Appeared in Sharpe's Eagle (1993) (TV) with Sean Bean. Bean played the villain in GoldenEye (1995), which was directed by Martin Campbell, who also directed Casino Royale (2006).

Voted #7 in Elle (France) Magazine's "15 Sexiest Men" poll (June 2007).

One of 115 people invited to join AMPAS in 2007.

Is the shortest actor to play the role of James Bond, despite being relatively tall standing at 5 feet and 11 inches.

Good friend of actor Gaspard Ulliel.

October 2007 - Signed on to play "James Bond" in four more films after Casino Royale (2006).

Lord Aisrael, his character from The Golden Compass (2007), was previously played by Timothy Dalton in a London theater production. Craig and Dalton have also, of course, shared the role of James Bond.

Graduated from Guildhall of Music & Drama (London) in 1991.

Quit smoking before making Casino Royale (2006).

Between 2005 and 2008, Craig played militant Jewish soldiers or fighters three times in fairly quick succession: in Sorstalanság (2005) ("Fateless"), he plays an American soldier who identifies himself as Jewish while liberating a concentration camp; in Munich (2005), he plays the most militant member of a team of Mossad agents assigned to assassinate the terrorists responsible for killing Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics; and in Defiance (2008), he plays one of three Jewish brothers who escape from Nazi-occupied Poland to join the resistance.

Ranked #29 in the 2008 Telegraph's list "the 100 most powerful people in British culture".

Is a big fan of Robert Altman films.

He was a fan of the fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, before he was cast in the the trilogy's first chapter The Golden Compass (2007).

Became good friends with Nicole Kidman, after they worked together on The Invasion (2007), and The Golden Compass (2007).

While incognito at a cinema in the USA, he was once asked if anyone had ever told him that he looked like Daniel Craig. He answered "no" and walked away.

Was forced to wear lifts during filming and premiers for Quantum of Solace (2008), due to Bond girls Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton having slight height advantages over him.

Was considered for the part of Doctor in Blindness (2008) but Mark Ruffalo was cast instead.

Personal Quotes

I go through life thinking it's all going to end tomorrow.

I don't believe in self-promotion, really I can't be arsed.

People always say, "That stuff you did in Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998) must have been difficult . . . but I say, "No, it wasn't really; that was some of the easier stuff to do", because it was always clear and made a lot of sense. It's when things are unclear and when you don't know what you're doing--that's when things are difficult.

As far as I'm concerned, I want to be nowhere else. It's difficult in film because everybody wants to make a safe bet with roles. But if you are going to do stuff then you should be getting strong reactions. I don't want audiences to be going, 'Yeah, that's all right.'

It's something else. I'm speechless. I've just got to step up to the plate and deal with it. I had a confidence about it but then that's because of the people around me who made me feel good about it. I knew positively on Monday. I was in Baltimore when I took the call. My first reaction was I needed a drink.

I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other. That's a simple fact. I've seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that's what's scary about them.

I kind of feel that if you look at the track record of most Bonds - I mean Sean Connery obviously defined the part, and even he struggled for a while to get rid of the mantle. That's the pitfall and it could happen to me. I've been working so hard, for however long it is I've been doing this, to try and stick to doing stuff I totally believe in and that would be wiped out. I thought, God, this is all right: I'm doing what I want to do. And that was a huge weight off my shoulders.

I just wanted to see him [James Bond] make a few mistakes. I want to make the audience believe that it's all going to go wrong and then when it goes right it's much more exciting. Every day you pick up an injury and you're battered and bruised. If you're not physically fit then it's difficult to get through. I'm a Bond fan. If I go and see a Bond movie there are certain things I think should be in it. And they're there. We've got them in spades. Nobody knows more than I do how important this is, and it's my job to get it right.

[on the backlash from Bond fans] I didn't expect this backlash. You take it in, you can't help it. I've been trying to give 110% since the beginning, but after all the fuss, maybe I started giving 115%.

[interview in Entertainment Weekly magazine] If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me - which, sadly, I have done - it would drive me insane.

[interview in Entertainment Weekly magazine] They [diehard James Bond fans] hate me. They don't think I'm right for the role. It's as simple as that. They're passionate about it, which I understand, but I do wish they'd reserve judgment.

I hope it's going to be liberating. I'm not putting any negative spin on this because to be typecast as James Bond is a very high-class problem for an actor, and I'm certainly going to try to get as much out of it as I can. Of course I am always going to think about whether it is going to limit what I do. I plan for it not to, but if it does, I'll approach that problem when it comes.

I wanted to do as much of the action work as I could, so that the audience can see it's me and it's real. I feel like I became a sportsman of sorts, and that meant acquiring injuries and carrying on and bashing through to the next level of pain. Although the stunt team did fantastic work to make sure that everything was as safe as possible, if you don't get bruised playing Bond, you're not doing it properly. I had black eyes, I had cuts, I was bruised, I had muscle strains, and I took a lot of painkillers. But it was part of the job. As much as I was hurt, the stuntmen were in much more pain.

I was affected by it - of course I was. What bothered me was that I was being criticized before I had done the work. I wasn't going to get into an argument with these people, so my only response was, 'See the movie and then you have the right to criticize, but first see what I am trying to do.' It strengthened my resolve. I was hurt by it, but it just made me try harder. The pressure was there. I know a lot of people feel very passionate about the Bond movies, but so do I, so I just got on with it. What I tried to achieve was just making a movie people will want to go and see, and I think we have made a great movie. One of the things I was criticized for was that I looked like a bad guy, but I was happy with that because I think true good guys have to step into the dark side to do their job. I wanted people to question Bond's morals and his judgment.

Sean Connery set and defined the character. He did something extraordinary with that role. He was bad, sexy, animalistic and stylish, and it is because of him I am here today. I wanted Sean Connery's approval and he sent me messages of support, which meant a lot to me.

[interview with David Giannarco, Hello! magazine, 11/27/06, about the plot for "Bond 12"] What we've done is set in process the idea that there's an organization out there and Bond is now after them. That's where we will pick up the next film. There's going to be a real element of revenge.

[on-set interview with David Giammarco, The Globe and Mail, 3/27/06] I got a personal trainer for Casino Royale (2006), which has been an absolute godsend. I knew I had to be in the best shape I could be, otherwise I would never survive it. Because at the end of the day, there isn't any painting-it-in for this movie. These stunts aren't going to be helped by CGI . . . what you're seeing is the real thing. And I've got the bruises to prove it!

[interview with David Giammarco, Hello! magazine, 11/27/06, on on being approached to take over the James Bond character] [Pierce Brosnan] and I had a few drinks over it and we discussed it. And his advice to me was, "Go for it!"--which I think is the best advice I could've gotten.

[on preparing for his second James Bond performance] Last time I did a lot of weights to bulk up. This time I'll do more running. I won't be as "no-neck". But when this guy takes his shirt off, he should look like he could kill someone.

I always wanted to be an actor. I had the arrogance to believe I couldn't be anything else.

Method actors suggest that you do sense memory exercises every time you do a scene. I use every method I can. Whatever works, I'll use.

Well, competition is so important, even when you're an artist. And if you deny that there's competition, then you're a liar. That's what gives you your ambition.

[on first hearing he had the role of James Bond) When [Bond producer Barbara Broccoli] rang me to tell me I'd got the part, I was buying dishwashing tablets in Whole Foods. I promptly dropped them and went and bought a bottle of vodka!

[remarking on an injury he sustained on the set of Quantum of Solace (2008)] I lost my fingerprint, so now I can go out and commit all sorts of crimes.

Salary
Quantum of Solace (2008) £ 4,500,000
Casino Royale (2006) £ 2,000,000

Where Are They Now

(January 2006) January 30th: Started shooting on his new film Casino Royale (2006) in the Bahamas.

(January 2008) (January 2008) January 4th: Started filming Quantum of Solace (2008)

(March 2008) In Chile, filming Quantum of Solace (2008).

(June 2008) Finished filming Quantum of Solace (2008).

(January 2009) Filming The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011).