What the hell are you talking about? Humphrey Bogart is not classically good-looking, necessarily, but he’s not ugly by any stretch of the imagination.
Further, all rolleyes aside, isn’t part of the issue here what’s appropriate for the role? Or is it more important that the James Bond franchise be affirmative action for the ugly? It’s already been pointed out that he doesn’t look much like Ian Fleming’s descriptiong of Bond. And isn’t Bond supposed to be suave and handsome? Apparently those of us who find Daniel Craig ugly (and hoo-boy, he’s got one unfortunate face in my opinion) are in the minority, and you’re welcome to disagree and think he’s attractive. But arguing that James Bond could equally be played by an ugly actor is simply nonsense.
On looks alone, which seem to be the pertinent argument, I think he’s handsome enough. Someone like Jack Black? Not handsome enough. Adam Corolla? Not handsome enough. Steve Buscemi? While a fine actor, also not handsome enough. Craig is very handsome, just not in the way we’ve been trained to think of a Bond. I can understand saying his looks don’t fit the part, but the aggressivness of saying he doesn’t have them at all is trying to cover up the sun with a finger, and smacks of an incomprehensible bitterness towards the man.
Apparently, Ewan McGregor (yes, I know I’m obsessed!) was their first choice, but he turned it down because he didn’t want to be tied down to one role for so long.
Bogie was short, had a lisp and a slack face from a Navy injury, buck teeth, and wore a rug. He’s certainly no Gregory Peck; heck, he isn’t even Robert Mitchum. If he hadn’t had more style than the Rat Pack combined and the good luck of being cast in a couple of high grossing pictures, he would have been stuck in the gangster sidekick role for his career, and he sure wouldn’t have had Lauren Bacall on his arm.
Your still stuck in the paradigm of thinking of Bond as being this foppish dandy surrounded by auto-parody non-suspense action of the Moore years. For better or worse (IMHO the former), EON has decided to reinvent Bond as a serious, intense, brutal troubleshooter in the mold of Fleming’s literary vision (albeit, still with some cool action sequences). It’s not “affirmative action,”–nobody is going to get the role because he’s pitifully ugly–but selecting an actor that can pull that off, and Craig can do it in spades.
As for Craig’s alleged ugliness, I have talking money that says he could walk into a bar and successfully angle in on the most gorgeous dame in the place while you’re still putting in your drink order. I think he’s got something better than a pretty face; he has charisma; the sort of thing that allows a “funny looking midget” like Al Pacino to drive women wild.
Hear, hear. Craig has got “it,” and it’s about time that James Bond looked like he could kick someone’s ass. He’s been a prissy fop for two and a half decades.
That says it for me right there. I’m not a James Bond fan by any means. I think I saw a couple of movies, but don’t remember them, I don’t go out of my way to ever see them at the theater or even rent them on DVD. But I will probably rent Casino Royale and watch it, because Daniel Craig is very hot and has that certain something that I want to see in action.
By the way, I think Jeff Goldblum is a babe. Especially in Earth Girls are Easy . Yum!
Hey now; Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, License To Kill) could look pretty ruthless. 'Course, he starred in two of the lowest grossing Bond movies and disappeared without a trace, so few people even remember who he is. (Despite this, The Living Daylights ranks near the top of my listing of Bond films, along with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the little adored From Russia With Love.) But yeah, I kept working that Roger Moore was going to keel over at any time after Moonraker, and Brosnan looked like someone could break him like a twig. (He was great as the anti-Bond in The Taylor Of Panama, though.)
Bond has always been about what guys wish they could be in order to attract the kind of women Bond attracts, i.e. slightly dangerous, mildly unhinged, intially sexually aggressive but ultimately submissive (“Oh, James!”). During Moore’s tenure, however, Bond descended into characture or worse, and that includes his interaction with the babes; I mean, it’s pretty creepy that he was putting moves (and getting reciprocation) from girls young enough to be his granddaughters. Plus, the women of the Moore movies were pretty lame as well. Barbara Bach, Britt Ekland, and Tanya Roberts had nothing on real Bond babes like Ursula Andress, Luciana Paluzzi, and the exceptional Dame Diana Rigg. At least the Brosnan-era films had this going for them; Famke Janssen, Izabella Scorupco, Sophie Marceau were great Bond girls, and Michelle Yeoh singlehandedly saved Tomorrow Never Dies from the budget bin. (We’ll conveniently ignore Teri Hatcher, Denise Richards, and the decorative but excreable Halle Berry.)
Find me five women who find the Bond-era Roger Moore to be the exemplar of manly attractiveness. He was perfect for the foppish, winkingly self-aware Simon Templar, but he was about as far from the archtype Bond as Woody Allen.
I thought he looked way hotter in a preview than he does in the pictures posted here. Whatever it is, it doesn’t translate to still pictures for me, but in action…whoa. fanning self
I have no idea if I’ll see the movie or not, but I was impressed.
I adore Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge, Big Fish, even the Star Wars prequels - he’s great) but I don’t think I’d like the Bond he’d make.
I know a lot of people have said this, but… Argent Towers, are you saying you actually prefer the freak to the right in this picture? It looks like the edited monstrosity it is.
It’s what separates him completely from prior Bonds except maybe Connery. Whole-body hot, not just neck-up good-looking in a tux please-don’t-bother-taking-anything-else-off.
First of all, Daniel Craig does look like Hoagy Carmichael. A lot. He has a broader face but the resemblance is definitely present. Far more than Carmichael resembles Pierce Brosnan, for sure. And Craig looks nothing like Vladimir Putin. I don’t see that at all.
Second, he is not classically handsome but he is terrifically hot. Trust me on this, Argent Towers. You might not see it, but I’ve had it for him since Layer Cake. And he is JACKED for this role. Wow.
Give the guy a chance. Or don’t. But don’t call him ugly, or Russian, or whatever it is you’re on about. He’s going to be fine.
I saw Daniel Craig on the cover of Entertainment, and wondered why they cast Alfred E. Newman as James Bond. Seriously, he looks like Abraham Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones had a love child. For the record, I am a straight female and I think Sean Connery and Tommy Lee Jones are hotties!
