It’s no secret that Daniel Craig almost didn’t make No Time to Die.
During the publicity rounds for Spectre in 2015, Craig’s response to the media questioning if he’d be returning to the black tuxedo was, well, colourful to say the least.
“I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists,” he told a journalist during an interview at The Guardian. “No, not at the moment. Not at all. That’s fine. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.” Ouch.
Of course, these were famous last words spoken by the now 52-year-old, who started with the franchise when he was 37-years-old.
If the above quote is anything to go by, Craig really wasn’t prepared to make the fifth (and final) installment of James Bond.
In a long-form interview with GQ, the actor revealed that preparing to play one of the most famous characters in history, caused him great anxiety.
“I was never going to do one again,” the actor told the outlet. “I was like, ‘Is this work really genuinely worth this, to go through this, this whole thing?’ And I didn’t feel… I felt physically really low.
“So the prospect of doing another movie was just, like, off the cards. And that’s why it has been five years.”
He then revealed he had “suffered from it in the past”.
“I have suffered because it’s been like, ‘I can’t cope. I can’t deal with this.'”
Physically, Craig was dealing with many injuries sustained from the first four films, which took a toll on his body.
“You get tighter and tighter. And then you just don’t bounce,” he said.
During Quantam of Solace, he injured his arm twice and said at that point, his “arm was kind of useless”.
Then on Skyfall, he injured his calves.
“It’s not about recovery, because you know you can recover. It’s about psychologically thinking that you’re going to do it again.”
Finally, during Spectre, he injured his ACL, after being thrown by fellow cast mate Dave Bautista during the train top battle.
“It feels like how the fuck are we going to do this?” he told the outlet. “And somehow you do.”
After his final outing as Bond, Craig is looking forward to exploring different roles.
“I’m pretty sure I can play just about anything,” he said.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I can, or at least I can make a f****** good fist of it.”
No Time to Die will hit cinemas on November 12, 2020.
WATCH: The official trailer for James Bond’s No Time To Die