Daniel Craig has broken his silence on the fateful ending of his final James Bond film, No Time To Die.
The actor reflected upon his exit from the franchise – which saw him killed off in in no uncertain terms to save his family – on the No Time To Die: The Official James Bond Podcast.
“There were lots of different ideas that came and went and some of it stuck. The through line of this is family [and] love, plus the fact we had an end so it was about hanging the film off that,” said Craig.
He also described the way that the film panned out as “really very, very satisfying.”
One of the film’s producers, Michael G Wilson, said of the ending: “I think all of us discussed that it seemed like a situation that we could tackle for the first time in the Bond series. Daniel had said, after the fourth one, he didn’t want to come back and Barbara got a hold of him and said, ‘Look, there’s something more to be told here, and we should finish this out’ and I think this was the fitting way to do it.”
Speaking to NME at the time of the film’s release, Craig reflected on his trajectory as 007.
“I was thinking about who I was when I started it and, actually, I was rather jealous of the fact that I was so naive back then and therefore just let it happen to me,” he said.
“I think that was a really good thing to be. As I’ve gone on I’ve learned more. I’m more involved, there’s more pressure and there’s more things going on.
“I don’t think there’s anything I could have said to myself back then that would have changed anything.”