Ironically, the character that will catapult 35-year-old Craig to proper stardom has no name - rather like Clint Eastwood in those lauded spaghetti Westerns - and neither does his role have any background or back-story to draw upon. And earlier this year he featured in many a tabloid gossip column thanks to a fling with model Kate Moss.īut this week, a major new British movie, Layer Cake, gives him the kind of meaty leading role that will surely bring him a whole new level of recognition, and indeed it's a part that cries out for his particular brand of brooding. Not that he hasn't dipped his toe into Hollywood blockbuster fare Craig has had notable roles in The Road to Perdition, and of course Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ("I did it for the money," he smiles). Yet his eclectic choice of film roles - frequently dark, independent, arthouse fare - and his avoidance of the showbiz-party, red-carpet circuit means that he's not as well known as his fellow Britpack heart-throbs Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. With his electric-blue eyes and chiselled jawline, Chester-born Daniel Craig is surely one of Britain's most unsung sex symbols. "We shot it towards the end of the movie, and we'd been taking the p*** out of each other for ages it was all over in a moment, thank God! We couldn't look each other in the eye."
It's certainly not a romantic moment without giving too much away, Craig's character is being coerced by his mentally unhinged follower, and it's a matter of life and death as he pretends to enjoy the intensely intimate gesture. "It was actually quite a traumatic scene to film," says Craig, referring to the moment when he and Ifans locked lips for the cameras.
Not that this is some shock-your-granny gay romance it's more an unsettling, psychological chiller as the Welsh star of Notting Hill fame plays an obsessive stalker to Craig's tortured and imploding hero in Enduring Love, the eagerly-awaited cinema adaptation of Ian McEwan's acclaimed novel, due for release in November.
DANIEL CRAIG has had to kiss an intriguing array of co-stars in some of his recent movies, from Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft, to Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia, to sexagenarian Anne Reid in The Mother.īut they all probably pale into insignificance compared to his latest on-screen snog, with none other than Rhys Ifans.