Daniel Craig won't play Bond again? Prop him up at the bar and tell him to do his bit for Britain

While upcoming James Bond film Spectre has made a pretty good fist of hiding its secrets from the public until now, the production hasn’t been completely watertight. We know, for instance, that Christoph Waltz is likely to play Blofeld. We know that the theme song sounds like a rollerskating witch trying to kick a weasel up a cobbled hill. We know that Spectre will contain at least one extended sequence where James Bond will use his shiny new Sony Experia Z3 mobile phone to look at photos of the Heineken logo, possibly while squirting himself with that ropey-looking 007 aftershave that people buy their dads for Christmas and murmuring, “Mmm, musty.”

And now, if Daniel Craig’s recent interview style is anything to go by, we know that Bond is going to look knackered. He’s going to look world-endingly knackered in Spectre, and when Lea Seydoux inevitably attempts to seduce him, he’ll respond by mumbling, “Oh, what’s the bloody point?” and wandering off to watch Match of the Day in his pants.

The proof? Asked this week by Time Out if he could imagine making another James Bond film after Spectre, Craig replied: “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists.” Shortly afterwards, he declared that if he did reprise his role, it’d purely be for the money. PT Barnum he ain’t.

You suspect, however, that this approach might actually be an issue of nationality. When the relentlessly, exhaustingly American Tom Cruise was tasked with promoting Mission: Impossible 3, for example, he memorably brought New York to a standstill by travelling to the premiere in a weird procession that included a motorbike, speedboat, taxi, helicopter, sports car and subway train. Meanwhile, Craig has decided to sell the sequel to a billion-dollar global blockbuster by threatening to deliberately injure himself if he’s ever made to do it again.

It’s an exceedingly British thing to do. One imagines that, on this basis, Craig’s natural successor should almost definitely be Robert Pattinson, the British actor who responded to the wall of adolescent hysteria that greeted his role as Spangly Vampire No 1 in Twilight by trashing the film at every possible turn, even going as far as to venture that the source material was “a book that shouldn’t have been published”. If Pattinson isn’t up to the task, perhaps Jamie Dornan is in with a shot, since the most memorable thing he said about Fifty Shades of Grey was: “I fear I’ll get murdered, like John Lennon, by one of those mad fans at the premiere.”

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Now, obviously, there’s a chance Craig’s comments have been misconstrued. It’s possible he was simply trying to be humorous about the punishing level of effort that goes into producing a film such as Spectre, and hinting that the thought of topping such a giddily entertaining spectacle has left him creatively intimidated.

But let’s hope not. Let’s hope that the pressures of playing Bond have really got to Craig and that this total apathy has somehow translated to the screen. Because, really, Bond should be perpetually on the brink of suicide. He’s an alcoholic, past-his-prime murderer who has never known lasting love, is likely to be riddled with all manner of STDs, occasionally bursts into tears in the shower and adheres to a professional dress code so insanely formal that you pray for him to one day discover the joys of a Slanket. By rights, every single 007 film should open with him slumped over a Betfred counter at 10am with someone else’s puke ground into his trousers. Realistically, his catchphrase should be: “Breakfast. Wetherspoons breakfast.”

That’s the James Bond we want to see. And we should want Daniel Craig to play him, right up until the moment he demonstrates the slightest glimmer of enthusiasm for the role. Then he’s out. Because that just wouldn’t be British.