Daniel Craig on Casino Royale

Daniel Craig could have been the man who walked away from one of the most iconic roles in movie history. It says something about the Chester-born star of such acclaimed British dramas as The Mother and Enduring Love, that even after being offered the role of James Bond, he wasn't immediately prepared to commit to becoming the sixth incarnation of Ian Fleming's super-spy.

Determined to make his judgement on the quality of the script rather than the reputation of the character, he said as much to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson when he was first approached nearly two years ago. And he was fully prepared for disappointment.

"Until I saw a script I could make no commitment," he explains. "I had a couple of meetings and I was very honest with them. I didn't say no, I just said I would read the script when they had it, and Barbara being as canny as she is said, 'Go on then, I'll see you in a while'. She's very persuasive. Eventually we met again and I read it.

"I genuinely didn't want to like it, I thought that was an easy decision for me to make: it was a Bond movie, I was sure it was going to be great, but it wasn't for me. But the script was just great, a terrific story, and too much of a challenge for me to turn down."

There's many an ambitious young actor who would have committed to the vaguest of plot outlines or the blithest of producer's promises simply to follow in the footsteps of Connery, Moore, Brosnan and Co. The more faltering efforts of George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton suggest caution is important too, but Craig was really seduced by the notion that just like GoldenEye 11 years ago, Casino Royale was going to reinvent the franchise for a new generation.

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