Daniel Craig regrets his second ‘James Bond’ movie.
The actor recently talked about his experience working on the 2008 action film in an interview on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast. He said, “[It was a] f*cking nightmare” because of the 2007/2008 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.
Craig added, “Paul Haggis did a pass on the script, then he went off and joined a picket line, and we didn’t have writers, so we didn’t have a script. We probably should never have gone and started production, but we did.”
Because of the strike, Craig said he ‘ended up writing a lot of that film,’ saying, “We were in that state because that’s what we’re allowed to do. I was allowed to work. Under WGA rules we were allowed to work with a director and write scenes.”
Although he is proud of the film’s ‘amazing stunt sequences,’ Craig feels the movie ‘didn’t quite work’ overall. The actor explained, “The storytelling wasn’t there. And that’s the abject lesson: going to start a movie without a script, it’s just not a good idea.”
After the success and praise of his first Bond film, ‘Casino Royale,’ ‘Quantum of Solace’ wasn’t as well received, with a 63% critics score and 58% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The series recovered with ‘Skyfall,’ earning a 92% critics score.
While ‘Spectre’ received lower reviews, Craig’s final Bond film, ‘No Time to Die,’ scored 83% from critics and 88% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
‘Quantum of Solace’ picks up with Craig’s Bond after the death of his love interest, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), in ‘Casino Royale.’ Seeking revenge, Bond tries to stop the group behind her death.
Craig injured himself three times while making ‘Quantum of Solace,’ which he mentioned in several interviews. He said in 2022, “I’m pissed off at myself that I ever even spoke about them. It’s my fault because I kind of didn’t shut up about the fact that I had all these injuries.”
The actor went on, “The physical side of the movies was just the job. I had to do it. I trained, learned the fights, that’s kind of my brain not working. I put way more work into the creative side of those movies than I did into the physical side of those movies.”
Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Queer,’ starring Craig and Drew Starkey, is released on December 13. Next year, Craig will return as detective Benoit Blanc in a third ‘Knives Out’ film.
