Why Daniel Craig Tried To Sabotage His First James Bond Meeting - And How It Backfired

Every single actor who's played James Bond has had a love/hate relationship with the role. For Sean Connery, landing the Bond films was a double-edged sword, as the Scottish star eventually came to feel boxed in by playing England's greatest spy, leading to him making a string of jarringly bleak films in the 1970s, including Christopher Nolan's favorite Connery film, "The Offence" in 1973. Throughout that time, Connery could be heard talking about how he "hated" James Bond, and even how he'd "like to kill him."

That sort of set a precedent, with every actor who played 007 in the ensuing years developing a similar relationship with the role. Roger Moore was never comfortable with, of all things, using guns, and after leaving the saga Pierce Brosnan claimed (via CBS) to have regretted the "stupid one-liners" and was glad to no longer be "shackled by some contracted image." Timothy Dalton was perhaps the most at ease with the role, but even then he had a difficult time following 1989's "Licence to Kill," initially deciding not to return as Bond before seemingly changing his mind only to find EON Productions drafted in Brosnan to replace him. Even George Lazenby experienced behind-the-scenes issues after playing Bond in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," struggling to reconcile his own affection for the counter-cultural zeitgeist of the time with the figure of a man who would die for Queen and Country.

But by far the most intriguingly bizarre relationship between actor and role belongs to Daniel Craig. The star of 2006's "Casino Royale" was, evidently, not only uncomfortable with playing the super spy during his tenure, he'd made up his mind about the whole thing before he was even cast — developing a strategy for undermining his first meeting for the role which ultimately backfired.

Daniel Craig has perhaps been the most vocal of all the James Bond actors about his anti-007 sentiments — at least since Connery said he wouldn't mind offing the character. The British star infamously told Timeout London back in 2013 (via The Guardian) that he would "rather slash [his] wrists" than play Bond after his fourth outing as the character. But while you might initially think the actor became jaded with each successive installment in the modern franchise, he was actually against Bond from the very beginning.

As noted in a GQ piece, before Craig was cast as 007 in "Casino Royale," he had convinced himself he didn't want to be Bond, while still agreeing to meet the producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. The actor said, "It was literally like, 'F**k off. I don't f**king want this. How dare you? How dare you offer this to me?'" So, when he went in to audition, he evidently took a blasé approach to his attire, wearing a dress shirt without cufflinks, paired with a jacket that revealed his shirtsleeves. "I thought, 'F**k it, I'll just let them hang down like that,'" he added.

What on earth had Craig so upset? That remains unclear, but based on his comments it seems the actor perhaps saw the role as beneath him in some way. Or perhaps he was reticent to become trapped in the same pigeonhole in which Connery found himself some 40 years prior. Whatever the reason, the actor, who more recently gave a sensational performance in Luca Guadagnino's "Queer," was apparently dead-set against being Bond (but still went to the audition). Luckily for fans of what remains the best Bond movie ever made, "Casino Royale," Craig's attempt to sabotage his audition didn't go as expected.

After Daniel Craig showed up to his James Bond audition in what he believed to be inappropriate attire, he was no doubt surprised to learn that his aloofness actually impressed the Bond custodians. In a making-of clip, longtime Bond producer Barbara Broccoli recalled Craig's relaxed dress as the exact thing that convinced her he was up for being the new 007. She said:

"Michael [G. Wilson] and I really wanted him. We only wanted him. The only problem was that he didn't want to do it. [He] came into the office and I remember he walked in and I said to Michael afterwards, 'He wants to do it.' It was the funniest thing, it was something about the way he [...] was wearing french cuffs and they weren't done up and [...] that thing somehow, I don't know why, I said, 'He wants to do it.'"

It seems, then, that Craig's sloppy cuffs were what won him the role of James Bond in the end. But that was really just the beginning of the actor's difficult relationship with 007. Even after landing the part but before filming began, the actor was seemingly intent upon ruining his shot at leading cinema's most enduring franchise.

As the GQ piece notes, when "Casino Royale" director Martin Campbell called Craig in for a screen test, the actor refused to play ball. Campbell asked the actor to take a grape from a fruit bowl and throw it in his mouth, but the star refused, "causing an argument on what was essentially his first day on the job." Craig said, "I just went, 'No.' I said, 'No, I can't.' I'm not going to do it. You do that. It was about 'How am I going to be James Bond?'" Amazingly, Craig managed to keep his spot as the new Bond, likely due to Broccoli's surprising affinity for her star's outright hostility to the role.

Despite his reservations over playing James Bond, Daniel Craig certainly managed it in the end — at least for the first movie. Even in the follow-up, "Quantum of Solace" — which remains the biggest disaster in Bond history but not for the reason you may think — Craig was good. Behind the scenes, however, it seems he never really settled in.

Years after making "Casino Royale" Craig spoke to his co-star Mads Mikkelsen for Variety, recalling how he didn't feel able to join the rest of the cast for poker games between scenes, saying, "What you were asking me to do was to go off set and relax and I was so not able to do that." In that instance, you might think the pressure of debuting his version of Bond and leading a legendary franchise had got to the actor — and that was undoubtedly part of it.

But we know that Craig was against the whole idea of Bond before he even auditioned. By his own admission, he literally tried to sabotage his casting at every turn. Without being crass, then, the question being begged when you consider all of this anti-Bond sentiment in its totality appears to be as simple as this: what the heck was Craig's problem?

In fairness, I think that Craig's simmering resentment towards Bond actually helped him find a new dimension within the character. His intense portrayal in "Royale" remains my favorite to this day, and that continued into "Quantum," which taken as an addendum to "Royale" is a good movie despite what you may have heard. The trouble came when Craig seemed to give up on hating Bond and assume his "I don't give a f**k" posture (yet another quote from his infamous Timeout London interview). I'd take barely-concealed rage at being in a Bond film over the more blasé approach both he and EON took after 2012's "Skyfall." Either way, the Craig era is now at an end, and the world awaits the announcement of the next actor to get very upset at playing 007.