14 DAY TRIAL // As far as awkward interviews go, James Bond fans were probably thinking Daniel Craig’s recent comments that he would rather “slit his wrists” than do another 007 film after “SPECTRE” was the most we’d get to see during this promo tour. That has changed thanks to Sarah Powell, correspondent for ITV’s This Morning.
Powell isn’t just a radio personality and showbiz correspondent; she’s also a comedienne, which would mean that there’s a chance that her idea of an “interview” was in fact a hoax she prepared for Craig, or some kind of joke. If it was the latter, she didn’t let him in on it.
Daniel Craig and a painfully awkward exchange
You can see a 25-second from the interview in the video below. It’s the part that got Craig the second-most offended, when Powell repeatedly asked him to pout for her.
She called that thing Craig does with his lips in all his 007 movies “the James Bond pout” and she asked him to show it to her. Craig was not amused, and you could tell from his expression from the instant he brought it up, but she kept pushing.
In the end, he shut her down, telling her she “need[ed] to move on.” She did, but only to things that infuriated him even more, the Daily Mail reports.
Among other ridiculous questions she asked the actor was whether Bond was suddenly going shy for not showing as much skin in “SPECTRE” as he did in previous installments. Craig initially laughed off the suggestion and then tried to answer the question, saying there was the opening scene that should count for her.
When that failed to satisfy her, he went with her suggestion, yes, James Bond was becoming shy.
However, the final drop for Craig came when Powell presented him with a car sticker with his wife’s name on it, Weisz. She might have been hinting at the recent rumors about marriage trouble, or simply making a joke out of how media-shy they are as a couple, but it resulted in Craig uttering a swear word and the transmission getting cut off.
A rep for the actor tells the Mail that he swore at the sticker and not at Powell, as suggested in the media.
Unprofessional behavior
Video of the interview has already gone viral, with many viewers discussing whether Craig was being rude for not playing along with what was obviously a joke, or whether Powell should get sacked for acting in such an unprofessional manner.
In addition to asking inane questions, she also kept giggling like a school girl and acting the exact opposite of what Craig was expecting when he walked in that room.
Not all actors can take such jokes and even less can do it without any kind of warning in advance. Cate Blanchett is among those few, but Craig never showed any indication that he might be too. So maybe Powell should have never tried.
