Each movie star started somewhere. Most of the biggest names in Hollywood didn’t arrive in a major blockbuster film as a fully formed star, instead they started out in small roles in small movies, and eventually got noticed and became part of bigger and better things. Daniel Craig claims that he was so ashamed of some movies, he kept them in Blockbuster video shops.
In the past, before streaming or getting DVDs in the mail, you had to walk to rental stores if you wanted to rent a movie. Blockbuster Video and other stores of its kind had massive libraries, including not only the newest major releases, but a lot of movies you’d probably never heard of. Daniel Craig said it recently Collider that he thought a couple of his early films were so bad that when he found copies on the shelf, he would toss them somewhere customers wouldn’t find them. He explained…
It used to be that this was my thing. Back in those days when Blockbusters still existed, I used go to Blockbusters, and I would pick up any movie on the shelves and then throw it under the counter. Although it wasn’t going to make much of a difference, I thought it might be worth it if someone didn’t watch the film.
Craig declined to identify the movies that he was talking about, but it is important to note the number of possible films. Blockbuster didn’t actually declare bankruptcy and begin its true decline into obscurity until after Daniel Craig had become James Bond in Casino RoyaleSo technically, every film he has made before that date is eligible for consideration. And there are several different films that you’ve probably never seen that were likely on the shelf at Blockbuster back then.
It is likely that stars are familiar with these movies. Sometimes the stars took the job due to the opportunity. In other cases they may specifically dislike their own performance, feeling that they just weren’t as good an actor at a point in the past, and wishing they’d done a better job.
Daniel Craig isn’t even the only James Bond actor to feel this way. Sean Connery’s big break was in Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People, which isn’t a terrible movie, but not the sort of thing that the man who created the James Bond role on film probably wanted people talking about.
Blockbuster has become more of a sitcom than a shop, but many people, including Daniel Craig will never forget it.