Crave Online: Did this film make you think about how you would've handled the situation?
Daniel Craig: Completely. I think that hopefully is one of the questions that people ask themselves when they're coming out of the film, but I don't know. I mean, it's unimaginable what those people went through. Obviously you'd like to think that you'd do the right thing.
Crave Online: Did it help you feel the situation when you stay on set? We heard the trailers were half a mile away so you wouldn't go back between setups.
Daniel Craig: It was a quarter mile yesterday and it's gotten up to several miles today. It'll be sixteen miles away by the end of the day. We didn't have a trailer. We had a bucket and a tarpaulin and I was happy with it. Yes, of course it does. It has a huge influence on what you're doing and it did have an influence on us, the fact that we all decided that we'd rather not spend time in our trailers, that we'd rather spend the time on set. I think that's key to a lot of what went on there on the set. It was cold. It was miserable. It was wet. It was uncomfortable, but you always have in the back of your mind the idea that you have a bed to go back home to that night and that there is some hot food somewhere within the forest. You're prepared to go looking for it at some point. These people did three winters there and that's just mind blowing. I don't spend much time in my trailer anyway even if it's huge and it never is. The last place that I want to be is in a smelly caravan. I mean, I'd rather be on set trying to get some work done.
Crave Online: Did you meet the Bielskis' family?
Daniel Craig: We did, yes. We sat and we drank and we talked and we had a conversation and we didn't talk much about Tuvia, but I just wanted to get a feel for them really. They were just sort of incredibly forward people, really energetic and really full of life and a proper family. They're like families are, sitting there and shouting at each other. Why whisper when you can scream? They're kind of like all families are and they're full of life. I mean, both Liev and I said, "These guys are kind of scary guys." They were like, "Hey! Come on!" I can imagine that that's how their parents were, their father was.
Crave Online: Did you have to justify his sometimes tough decisions for the greater good of the community?
Daniel Craig: It was clear if you read about it that there were power struggles and there were very serious power struggles. You can judge it if you like. One could judge it and ask if it's just because he wanted to remain in power or if he was just trying to keep it together. It's probably a little bit of both. It was just a completely extreme situation, and again, the question that you ask yourself is what would I do. Would I for the greater good of the group take this person out and quell this dissension aggressively and violently or do I leave it alone and allow the whole thing to just sort of disintegrate.
Crave Online: Being a father, did you draw on any paternal instincts to protect your children?
Daniel Craig: Well, in that situation I keep my family out of my work. I'd never use them for that reason. I think it's a sort of weird notion. Of course that's your instinct. Your instinct is, "I would protect this tooth and nail." But that's the thing, isn't it? That's what was so dreadful about this happening and any other circumstance like this happening in recent times. The notion in this is that family matters more than anything else and that's what keeps you together, but obviously we throw into that this brotherly relationship where the two of them kind of hate each other and the fact is that they can't live with each other. It's more complicated and the more complicated it is hopefully the more interesting it becomes. Of course there's the paternal instinct to sort of look after people, but there's just as strong an instinct to be looked after and it's a reciprocal thing. You help someone and the idea is that they'll help you back. It's all of those things, paternally, brotherly, sisterly.
Crave Online: Do you think anything like this could happen today?
Daniel Craig: For me this is an allegory for the modern life or parts of the modern life for parts of the modern world. When do we stop fighting? When do we actually decide to stop fighting so that we can live and despite the fact that there's this society that Tuvia had to kind of build up with a very authoritarian manner, and had to be because of the circumstances, the decision not to go to war and start living and start living as human beings, when do we actually make that switch and go, "Can we stop this now and get on with life?" It's a debate because obviously these men fought and they fought for their lives. But they fought to sort of get back to normal. That just rings true with me.
Crave Online: Did you hear any stories about Tuvia's adjustment after all of this?
Daniel Craig: He found it very difficult. He went to Israel. I think that he fought in The Six Day War. He was given a commission, I think, and made an officer and didn't really succeed. Then he came to New York with the family and they started a cab firm in New York and forgot about it, left it. But that's a testament to them as much as anything. The fact is that in spite of the horrific things that they went through they managed to live a life of peace afterwards and kind of forgot it and lived a life. It must've been tremendously difficult. I'm sure that he got very little sleep.
Crave Online: How physically demanding was this film given that you like to do all your own stunts?
Daniel Craig: I mean, obviously there aren't the same amount of stunts as in the Bond film, but it was physically demanding because we were literally filming on slopes like this in wet, cold weather all day long. We had a crew of grips that were running around with track and putting them at all sorts of angles. I mean, we were all physically running and up and down these hills day.
Crave Online: You're going after tanks and stuff in the film too though.
Daniel Craig: It was lying down, shooting at them. I wasn't really going after them. That was Liev. He did that.
Crave Online: The reaction to this Bond film was very different than the reaction to Casino Royale. Did that surprise you?
Daniel Craig: No, because Casino Royale was based on a novel and we're always going to have that. When you do a movie like that where the basis of a story is really strong and also the momentum of it, everyone thought that it was going to be sh*t. So when it wasn't they were all just completely surprised. I think that Quantum of Solace is as good a movie as Casino Royale. I think that the difference is that last time people were surprised by the fact that they enjoyed it. The fact is that we get reviews in newspapers that we'd never had reviews in before. Certainly with the internet we get seven and a half million reviews which are all worth looking at obviously.
Crave Online: The financial success of the film though must suggest that people really respond to you as Bond.
Daniel Craig: I don't try to intellectualize that. I do know what we've done is make a movie that the first time I saw it I got a huge kick out of it. Ultimately that's what we're trying to do at the end of the day, putting a movie out that's an entertaining, exciting, hopefully slightly moving Bond movie. That's all our goal ever was. The way that people have taken to it is just amazing.
Crave Online: Do you think that calls for the next one come a little quicker after this opening weekend?
Daniel Craig: I haven't heard anything, but then I'm not answering my phone.
Crave Online: What more do you want to do with Bond, what other parts of him would you like to explore?
Daniel Craig: Well, I genuinely think we've got a blank page now. We've finished this story off. Quantum of Solace was exactly the right thing to do. We started something with Casino Royale and we wrapped it all up with Quantum of Solace. We're ready to begin again and we can do what we want.
Crave Online: Does that mean you want to do something different?
Daniel Craig: Submarine base and outer space.
Crave Online: Are you still looking at Ian Fleming story elements because that worked so well in Casino Royale?
Daniel Craig: Yeah, but there's nothing left. It's all done unless someone finds a dirty manuscript under the couch. We're stuffed.
Crave Online: What about the John Gardner books?
Daniel Craig: I've never read them. I would bet any money that someone sort of optioned them and that they're tied up in something else. It's a very closed box.
Crave Online: Is it important for you to do projects other than Bond between the films?
Daniel Craig: It's not really the method that I go by. Look, I'm not going to take another part as a British spy who drives nice cars. That's definitely not going to happen, but I'm not closing the door on anything.
Crave Online: What kind of things ideally would you like to do?
Daniel Craig: I'm keeping a very open mind about it.
Crave Online: So there's nothing else on the horizon about it?
Daniel Craig: Not for the moment. A holiday.
Crave Online: How will you be spending the holidays?
Daniel Craig: Happily, hopefully [laughs]. Very quietly.
Crave Online: I've been playing the Quantum of Solace videogame.
Daniel Craig: Is it any good?
Crave Online: It's really cool. It looks like you.
Daniel Craig: I haven't had time to do that, but I'll get around to it.
Crave Online: What are your hopes for the New Year?
Daniel Craig: I can't answer questions like that without it sounding like a stock answer. Obviously I want world peace. What can I tell you? For myself I want health for my family. I want health for my friends. I'd like to continue what I'm doing. It's what everybody wants really.
