Sporting a platinum-blond crew cut that somehow gave his head even more right angles than usual, Daniel Craig took the stage at the New Yorker Festival Friday night to discuss his life and career, a conversation in which one question loomed above all others: Was he ever going to play James Bond again? By way of an answer, Craig recalled the time last year he said he would prefer to slash his wrists rather than do another Bond movie. “They say that shit sticks, and that definitely stuck,” he said with a laugh. “It was the day after filming [stopped on Spectre]. I’d been away from home for a year.” The physical strains of the role combined with the distance from his family take a toll, he said. Craig was careful, though, about not seeming to complain too much: “Boo-hoo. It’s a good gig. I enjoy it.”
In the short term, Craig’s schedule is full of other projects: He’s shooting Steven Soderbergh’s NASCAR-heist film Logan Lucky (the reason for the hair), preparing to play Iago off-Broadway, and will star in and produce Showtime’s adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s Purity. He said there have been “no conversations” about the next Bond film: “Everyone’s a bit tired.” Still, Craig didn’t seem like he was ready to hang up the role for good. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got the best job in the world. I’ll keep doing it as long as I still get a kick out of it,” he said. Then, later: “If I were to stop doing it, I would miss it terribly.”
