007 First Light lead actor Patrick Gibson says Daniel Craig was the Bond he grew up with, but he wanted to bring his own take on the character, informed by the context of the times.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Gibson says that preparation for the role included "watching each of the films and reading, especially the earlier books," and that in doing so, "It felt like various iterations kind of highlight pre-existing characteristics, and are also kind of informed by the context of the time that they're made in." He adds, "That was something that was interesting – they're all like a different color of the same spectrum of something."
Gibson explains "I grew up with [Daniel] Craig and, you know, the blunt force, brute instrument, bullet without a target kind of thing was really appealing, because that just, to me, clashing with a gentleman – a real, quintessential, and at heart, someone who's just morally upstanding." He adds, "each iteration kind of had its own thing, but I think that's kind of there in the source material."
For his version of Bond, Gibson notes, "it was really like finding how that plays in today's context and with a more youthful version, and, yeah, and kind of finding what that felt and looked like." And it's a valid point to make: Craig's Bond was definitely a far darker experience, reflecting the way the media was at the time, which you could also see in the tone change of Christopher Nolan's Batman films compared to previous attempts at the character in cinema. And to quote the best bit of analysis about Bond, the movies had definitely moved away from the "My name is Rebecca Ass" era of the character found in the earlier films.
