Daniel Craig revealed on THR’s Awards Chatter Podcast that he offered Skyfall directing to Sam Mendes (American Beauty) while he was at Hugh Jackman ‘s Christmas party while he was a little tipsy.
The filmmaker readily agreed, but Craig admitted he was in trouble because he would have to talk to someone before offering jobs.
“I was definitely a little drunk and Sam came in late. It arrived and I haven’t seen it in years, I haven’t seen it since ‘Road To Perdition’. … We sat down and had a drink together and it occurred to me, it was like one of those… Because we had had conversations about directors… and it became blatantly obvious to me, sitting across from him.
I looked at him and said, ‘Sure.’ … And I basically said to him: ‘I probably shouldn’t say that, but do you want to direct the next Bond movie?
And he did this thing, he looked at me [and squinted] and said, ‘Yeah. And I said, ‘Ok’, and I said, ‘I’m right in the m ## from now on.’ I’m sure there is someone I need to talk to about this before I go offering jobs to directors. Not my responsibility, but I was drunk! What to say?”
And Craig’s choice couldn’t be more than spot-on, the film grossing $ 1,108,561,013 worldwide, making it the franchise’s most successful title.
The film holds both records for best debut $ 88,364,714 and best-grossing US $ 304,360,277 and the highest-grossing film ever (£ 103.2M) in the UK.