Of course, it's the way Craig carries off those imperfections that gives him his star power, prompting people like Joel Silver, who produced The Invasion, to praise him as a fantasy hybrid of old-fashioned leading men. “In the Thirties and Forties, Hollywood used to refer to ‘rug actors’ and ‘dust actors,’” says Silver. “Cary Grant was a rug actor—he could do the love scenes—and John Wayne was a dust actor, who could shoot and fight. Daniel can do rug and dust. He's got craggy good looks, and he's a masculine tough guy—and let's face it, there aren't a lot of them around.” In The Invasion, both Craig and Kidman play doctors fighting off extraterrestrials who snatch humans' personalities. Silver says the genuine chemistry between the two actors helps give the story a touch of romance, “but it's also a creepy, paranoid movie—weird and dark and exciting.”
In The Golden Compass, which features flying witches, gypsies and talking bears, Kidman and Craig play star-crossed lovers. She is the wickedly manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and he is the adventurer and scholar Lord Asriel. In the film's climax, the two play out their one romantic scene on the North Pole, while straddling two universes. Director Chris Weitz (About a Boy) says that although the sequence was shot on a soundstage with 60-foot ceilings, a green-screen backdrop and giant fans blowing fake snow, the result is a “great sentimental moment—a throwback to the moment Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara say goodbye.”
With a chuckle, Craig vows that his and Kidman's next film together will feature no aliens or special effects. “We're going to do some kitchen-sink drama about working-class people outside Sydney,” the actor says. In the meantime, Craig will be picking up where he left off in Casino Royale, delving deeper into the murky psyche of Agent 007. The actor says he didn't know until Casino Royale came out whether he'd have a future as James Bond. “If it had bombed, we wouldn't have done another one,” he says, adding that meetings were due to begin in January about the plot of the next installment. Early reports say that the film will be based on Ian Fleming's short story “Risico,” with Bond going to Rome to infiltrate a drug ring flooding Britain with heroin. Craig is playing dumb about the details, but he does say that if he has his way in future sequels, Fleming's beloved bimbos will be as obsolete as shoe phones. “I want the women to be fabulous, intelligent and great. If Bond has affairs—and behaves a bit more like Bond—there has to be a good reason for it. Otherwise it doesn't work. That's not what people are interested in anymore.”
