Casino Royale casting director Debbie McWilliams opens up about why she felt Daniel Craig was the obvious choice to become the new James Bond. Craig's casting as the iconic MI6 superspy came as Eon Productions elected to reboot the James Bond franchise following the middling critical and commercial reception to Pierce Brosnan's films following his acclaimed debut in GoldenEye. The future Knives Out star was one of many actors eyed by the producers for the role, some of whom included Karl Urban, Sam Worthington, Dougray Scott and Henry Cavill.
Craig would ultimately land the role and star in Casino Royale as a young Bond at the start of his career as Agent 007 for MI6 as he takes on an assignment to bankrupt terrorist financier Le Chiffre in a high-stakes poker game at the titular Montenegro locale. He finds his assignment complicated as he falls in love with the treasury employee assigned to provide Bond the money for the game and the assistance of CIA agent Felix Leiter. Casino Royale hit theaters in 2006 to rave reviews from critics, establishing Craig as an international star, and grossed over $606 million worldwide, a franchise high until it was later surpassed by Skyfall.
While chatting with Entertainment Weekly for No Time to Die, McWilliams reflected on her time as a casting director for the James Bond franchise going all the way back to For Your Eyes Only. In exploring Craig's tenure in the role and the search that led to his casting in Casino Royale, McWilliams opened up about how he landed the role and why her and producer Barbara Broccoli felt him right for the part. See what McWilliams shared below:
"There was a massive search before he was cast and it had started out as a slightly different slant on things. Originally the story of Casino Royale was meant to be a sort of new, young tryout growing into James Bond rather than the fully formed character, but we struggled to find anybody who could fill those shoes. We saw lots and lots of people and tested a bunch and one or two people even said, "Look, I'm not ready for it," which was pretty brave of them. Then as time went by they decided, let's just stick with the old formula and let's look at it again. And that was after a long, long search and Daniel became the obvious choice to me in the end. Well, he was obvious to me and obvious to Barbara Broccoli, not so obvious to everybody else. [Laughs] It was she who battled long and hard for him and she won the day."
Though following the comment with a laugh, McWilliams' note that Craig's casting was met with a poor response from the public was unfortunately a real problem at the time of Casino Royale's production. However, Craig would listen to this backlash from fans and push through it and the naysayers have since found themselves silenced over the past 15 years. Some certainly still critique Craig's tenure in the role due to the mixed final products of each of his films, though the general consensus has certainly remained consistently high on his performance as Bond.
In addition to delivering one of the best Bonds for the screen, audiences have generally seen Casino Royale to be one of the best installments in the franchise. It success not only revitalized the franchise as a whole but also the character and has left many eager to see how Craig's time in the franchise will come to an end with the upcoming No Time to Die. The wait is almost over as the film is set to hit theaters on October 8.
Source: EW
