Daniel Craig may have won over audiences in “Casino Royale” as the latest James Bond, but he says there’s only one actor who will always own the role.
“The Sean Connery movies stand up for me. They’re my benchmark,” he told the November issue of Playboy. “I like the others, but Connery is fantastic.”
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And his favorite Bond girl?
“Diana Rigg,” he told the mag. “She was good in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.’ She was the one Bond girl who was nearly bigger than the movie.”
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Daniel will return as 007 in “Quantum of Solace,” due November 14. But while the film will offer the same super-spy action the series is known for, things have changed since Connery and Roger Moore’s days.
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“Beautiful women are always part of the story. In the past maybe they were more objectified,” he admitted. “They were just eye candy. Now they’re integral and powerful in their own right. They’re beautiful, but now things are almost reversed. In this movie I don’t think we objectify women. I’m the one taking my clothes off most of the time.”
Despite his death-defying roles - before Bond, he played a drug dealer in 2004’s “Layer Cake” — Daniel’s no thrill-seeker.
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“Some people need them, but I don’t,” he said. “I’d happily go and sit on a rock and look at the view, but I’m not one of those people who jump off for fun. I’d say, ‘I’ll meet you down at the bottom. I’ll drive down, and we’ll meet for lunch.’”
Instead, the star says it’s the “simpler things” that make him happy, even after his recent box office boom.
“If I were 20 years younger — even 15 or 10 years younger — and this kind of success happened to me, I would probably have gone out and spent every penny I’d earned,” he said. “I would have changed my life in a way that would have — well, it probably wouldn’t have been the healthiest. But because I’m the age I am, I don’t have the urge or the need to change much, and I haven’t.”
Nevertheless, the glamorous life of Bond beckons - and Daniel’s signed up to play him in two more films.
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