A new James Bond movie opens this week, 50 years after the first film, Dr. No.
The latest installment, Skyfall, finds Daniel Craig once again in 007's perfectly tailored suit. And this time, Bond is battling both the bad guys and his own mortality.
Skyfall is directed by an English theater veteran, albeit a young one. Sam Mendes was a boy wonder of that scene in the late '80s, directing Judi Dench in The Cherry Orchard when he was just 24. He staged a much-acclaimed revival of Cabaret, first in London and then on Broadway. And his first feature film, American Beauty, won him a Best Director Oscar.
It was on his second movie, Road to Perdition, that Mendes met Craig. They'd meet up again just a few years later at a party and start discussing James Bond. The director explains to NPR's Renee Montagne how that conversation would lead him to the world of the MI6 agent — and how he made the experience his own.
Interview Highlights
On how he came to direct the film
"[Daniel Craig and I] both had a couple of drinks, and I asked him ... when he was doing the new Bond movie. And he said, 'I don't know.' And I said, 'And who's going to direct it?' And he said, 'I don't know. Why don't you do it?' And I can honestly say that I hadn't any strategy. I hadn't any particular agenda in asking him. I was just making small talk, literally. But it never occurred to me until he said it. I think Daniel sobered up the next day, realized that he'd offered me the job, and it wasn't really his position to do that. So he called the producers, and two weeks later I met them. And they were very, very collaborative and very open. It was very clear from the beginning what they wanted was not a Bond movie, but my Bond movie. And so I felt very comfortable from that moment on, really."
Watch Clips From 'Skyfall'