Daniel Craig has remained tight-lipped about his James Bond exit in No Time To Die, appearing at numerous press events and speaking in interviews about the role in general and the film being the end of his era of Bond, but for the first time since the film’s release, Craig has now spoken about the controversial ending. While the film was delayed by both the loss of original director Danny Boyle and the subsequent Covid pandemic, fans were finally able to see how James Bond’s current run ended.

The finale of No Time To Die did something that no other Bond movie has ever done and killed off James Bond. Having been infected with a dose of a nanobot virus meant for Madeleine, Bond kills the movie’s villain Safin, before sacrificing himself to see the nanobot factor destroyed by a missile strike. While this shocked many fans to the core, as on almost sixty years of Bond movies the seemingly indestructible hero has never been killed off on screen, Daniel Craig seems to be quite pleased with how it all turned out, as he felt the ending of his run had to “have weight” that would not have been possible without such a tragic ending. In conversation with Variety, Craig said:

“If you stay to the end credits, it definitely says, “James Bond will return.” So all is good…

I think the important thing was that we all try to create a situation of tragedy. The idea that there’s an insurmountable problem, there’s a greater force at play, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. And the greater force being Savin’s weapon. And that it [kills] the only thing that Bond wants in life, is to be with the people he loves and that he can’t be with them, and therefore, there’s nothing worth living for.

And he would in fact endanger their lives, and that’s the last thing on earth he wants to do. So that element was incredibly important to sort of thread in there, because it couldn’t feel like a random act. It had to have weight — without it, it wasn’t gonna work. And if we hadn’t have got that weight, I don’t think we would’ve done it. We would’ve found another way of ending it. “

For Craig, the ending of No Time To Die ensured that there would be no more possible returns for his version of Bond, but as he mentioned, James Bond will be back and that means a new actor will be taking over the role and the saga will effectively be once again starting over with a new style, new take on the character and a new face for the most famous spy in the history of cinema. Craig has made no secret that he wanted to quit the role of Bond long before No Time To Die came around and with the film being the first in the franchise to kill of James Bond, there was a lot of pressure to get that moment right. With a grounded reality being the signature of Daniel Craig’s run, the death of the character was always going to be the most likely outcome.