Oh, to be James Bond…tanning his washboard abs on a beach, a beautiful woman to his left and a vodka martini to his right (shaken, not stirred, naturally), without a care in the world aside from killing a couple of bad guys. The dream life, or is it?
Well, we can’t account for the fictional character, but Baillie Walsh’s new documentary Being James Bond: The Daniel Craig Story, invites us to spend a day in Bond’s spotless Crockett & Jones shoes, and the outcome is a whole lot less glamorous than anticipated. The truth is, being Bond is no walk in the park…especially if you are a devastatingly handsome blonde haired, blue-eyed actor – don’t you know Bond is not supposed to be Blonde? Nor us…
+ For another behind the scenes documentary, watch Untold.
Ed Power from The Telegraph describes Walsh’s film as “full of emotion, brutal honesty and psychological torture”, perhaps not the overwhelming qualities one would expect from a documentary on the world’s favourite spy. In this short film, we are shown exactly what it took to shoulder arguably one of the most significant cinematic roles in the world – after all, James Bond is more of a national hero than a fictional character, and his casting is prone to causing more conversation than a wayward election.
The documentary comes just weeks before the release of Craig’s fifth and final Bond film, and packed full of archive footage and inside interviews, it’s the perfect appetite cleanser to ready fans for the new release, and for the inevitable casting change around the corner.
Power says the film “portrays Craig as a sincere and well-intentioned actor who gave everything to the role but isn’t particularly devastated to be moving on to the next chapter”, understandable considering the teething issues he faced at the beginning of his role. Of course, people adjusted to the new, blonder Bond, aided likely from that one beach shot in Casino Royal that made mums all around the world gasp in unison. But now, it is time to move on again, for us and for Craig.
No matter who the successor is, we know one thing for certain…the name will be Bond, James Bond.
First shown September 2021.
