When James Bond died at the end of “No Time To Die,” many critics and audience members met the event with surprise. After being seemingly immortal for decades, 007 is dead? But star Daniel Craig wanted it that way, and, from his perspective, he didn’t want it any other way either.
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EW reports that in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Craig said there were two major reasons for killing off his iteration of Bond at the end of the latest Bond film. One, it was so Barbara Broccoli and co. could find more easily find a new James Bond after Craig left the part. But the second reason was direr for Craig: if his Bond didn’t die in the movie, he may have returned at some point for a sixth film, and he really, really didn’t want to.
“Two things, one for myself and one for the franchise,” the actor explained to the LA Times. “I was like, ‘Well, you need to reset again.’ So let’s kill my character off and go find another Bond and go find another story. Start at [age] 23, start at 25, start at 30. The other was so that I could move on,” Craig continued. “I don’t want to go back. I suppose I should be so lucky if they were to ask me back, but the fact is I need to move on from it. The sacrifice that he makes in the movie was for love, and there’s no greater sacrifice. So it seemed like a good thing to end on.”
Indeed, Bond dying for love at the end of “No Time To Die” is an anomalous ending in the franchise. Usually, the superspy finds himself wrapped up with a “Bond girl” somewhere after being impervious to any means the movie’s bad guy used to try and dispose of him. But Craig made his decision to leave the character behind all the way back in 2015, after he broke his leg on the set of “Spectre.” “I had to question myself: Was I physically capable of doing [another one] or did I want to do another one?” Craig told EW in 2019. “Because that phone call to your wife saying ‘I’ve broken my leg’ is not pleasant.”
Bond producers Broccoli and Michel G. Wilson eventually persuaded Craig back to don Bond’s snug tuxedo on last time. “He felt at the end of the last movie he’d kind of done it,” Broccoli told EW in an earlier interview. “I said to him, ‘I don’t think you have, I think there’s still more of the story of your Bond to tell.’ Fortunately, he came around to agree with that.” But don’t expect Craig back as Bond ever again. He’s moved on to a new regular role now, Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson‘s “Knives Out” movies, and Craig apparently loves every minute of it.
Catch Craig in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” during its one-week theatrical release starting November 23. Or, alternatively, wait until the film hits Netflix exclusively on December 23.