Over the more than three decades during which Daniel Craig has been acting in the movies, there’s not much that the British A-lister hasn’t done. Most famously, he played James Bond in five films over 15 years (2006’s Casino Royale, 2008’s Quantum of Solace, 2012’s Skyfall, 2015’s Spectre and 2021’s No Time to Die). He has also worked with many of the greatest filmmakers (e.g. Steven Spielberg on 2005’s Oscar-nominated Munich and David Fincher on 2011’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and actors (e.g. Tom Hanks and Paul Newman on 2002’s Road to Perdition) of his time. And he is at the center of Netflix’s biggest film franchise (playing detective Benoit Blanc in 2019’s Knives Out, 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and the forthcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery).
Never, though, has Craig, 56, been nominated for an Oscar. That could soon change thanks to his massively acclaimed portrayal of a William S. Burroughs surrogate — William Lee, a gay American living in exile in 1950s Mexico City who is addicted to booze, drugs and sex — in Luca Guadagnino’s new A24 film Queer, an adaptation of Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical 1985 novella of the same name.
In mid-November, Craig came to Chapman University in Orange County to record a special episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, on which he previously guested in 2022. This time, he fielded questions about his life, career and latest film from not only yours truly, but also from some of the 500 students who packed the Folino Theater. Below, you can listen to the full session or read a transcript of it that has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
FEINBERG Thank you so much for being here. I’m going to start off with a few questions and then we’ll incorporate student questions. To begin with, can you share with us where you were born and raised and what your parents did for a living?
CRAIG I was born in the city of Chester, which is about 20, 30 miles south of Liverpool, and raised in Liverpool. My mother was a teacher in Liverpool. My father ran pubs and lots of other things. And my mother was very connected with the theater community in Liverpool, so I suppose that’s where I got my bug.
FEINBERG You left home when you were 16 to pursue acting?
CRAIG Yeah, I was 16. It was the early ’80s in Liverpool, one of the most depressed times in the city’s history. Most people in Liverpool blame Margaret Thatcher for starving the city, which I tend to agree with — I mean, there was terrible unemployment, there was nothing happening, there were no opportunities. I was contemplating joining the Navy. I was thinking about all sorts of avenues, because there were just no opportunities. I knew I wanted to act, but what were my outlets? There was a thing called the National Youth Theatre, which still exists as an organization, which auditions young actors from all over the country and then gets them together for a summer course. I went down to London on a summer course when I was 16 and never left.
