Stop whining, Mr Bond

Daniel Craig alienates filmgoers by moaning about his glamorous role

Actor Daniel Craig and actress Naomie Harris by Suzanne Plunkett. (Reuters)

Once when I was reporting at the Cannes Film Festival, I was asked by the BBC if I would be filmed talking about the difficulties of doing that job, the administrative hassles etc. I quickly decided that people in Britain watching me moaning, with yachts in the background, blue sky and sea, might equally quickly decide what to call me, and politely declined.

I thought of that near miss this week when an infinitely more celebrated person started moaning publicly about an infinitely more glamorous assignment. With the new James Bond film about to be released, its star Daniel Craig was asked if he would return for a fifth outing as Bond. He replied: “I’d rather break the glass and slash my wrists. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.”

Perhaps sensing that this could be interpreted as a slightly churlish dismissal of a high-paying, world-famous role, one of his co-stars Naomie Harris, who plays Eve Moneypenny (Miss Moneypenny as Ian Fleming among others was wont to call her) gallantly tried a few days later to come to his rescue. She said that Craig was joking, it was a “sarcastic remark” because of the physical toll involved in filming the movies. Craig did in fact injure himself on one stunt in the new film and had to have an operation. Ms Harris continued: “I’ve seen him work 15-hour days and then come back and train for two hours. He does all of his own stunts unless the insurance won’t allow it.”

But actually I’m not sure that she has done him much of a favour. An awful lot of us ordinary mortals work 15-hour days. Ok, we don’t do 007-style stunts, but we experience our own occupational hazards and occupational weariness. Both Craig and Harris have fallen into the trap that actors all too often fall into, becoming slightly divorced from the real world, forgetting that most mortals would kill for their jobs, and trying in vain to convince the wider world (as happens in countless actor interviews) that this glamour thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

They need to realise that it won’t wash, and they need to realise too that we the film-goers don’t want it to wash. Bond is in many ways the ultimate fantasy figure in the ultimate glamour movies, and it doesn’t help that fantasy or the suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy the films, if the actor playing him is a bit of a grouch who’d rather cut his wrists than play him again. That is one reason why Craig’s candour was unwise. The other reason is quite simply that the public will have no sympathy whatsoever with his Bond-fatigue. They might suggest that he could always swap jobs with them.

The Royal Court should look back in celebration

The Royal Court theatre has announced plans for its 60th birthday season. Artistic director Vicky Featherstone said the season would look to the future, and there is a raft of new plays in the season. As the Royal Court is Britain’s premier home of new writing, there is a logic to this. But I’d have thought there could have been some acknowledgement of the London venue’s celebrated English Stage Company’s history and beginnings. The 1956 debut of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger was one of the most seminal theatre productions, arguably changing the art form for ever. A new production of the work would have been fitting, and would have given new, young audiences an insight into both theatre and Britain 60 years ago. One can make too much of anniversaries, but a nod to history wouldn’t have gone amiss.

The road Bob Dylan almost took

I listened to an excellent programme on BBC Radio 4 this week, a 50th anniversary tribute by Andy Kershaw to the Bob Dylan album Highway 61 Revisited, arguably the moment when pop became rock. There were revealing interviews about the making of Highway 61 from session men who played on the album. At the end of the compelling programme, the BBC announcer said “That was Andy Kershaw talking about Highway 51.” Wonderful! Have a half hour programme on how important the seminal album was and then get its name wrong. But actually I’m glad he did. It was in its way a fitting 50th-anniversary throwback to the days when BBC announcers didn’t really have a clue what all this pop stuff was about and regularly mispronounced names of the stars and their works. Who knows, perhaps the mistake was deliberate for that very reason.

d.lister@independent.co.uk

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