"The films go toe to toe with Marvel: Craig’s Skyfall did around the same box office, $1.1 billion, as Iron Man 3. At the same time, they are weirdly artisanal, bound by tradition, a certain way of doing things. The offices of Eon Productions, which makes the movies, are a short walk from Buckingham Palace. The theme tune hasn’t changed for half a century. The stunts are largely real. The scripts are a nightmare. There is a slightly demonic, British conviction that it will all work out in the end. “There has always been an element that Bond has been on the wing and a prayer,” Sam Mendes, who directed two of Craig’s 007 movies, told me. “It is not a particularly healthy way to work.” Reckoning with any of this doesn’t actually help if you’re the frontman. Craig has spent a lot of his time as James Bond trying not to think at all. While making No Time To Die, he taped some interviews with Broccoli and Wilson about his years in the role. There was a lot that he simply couldn’t remember. “Stop fucking thinking and just fucking act,” Craig said once, like it was an incantation. “It’s almost that. Because so many things are going on in your head. I mean, if you start thinking…that’s it. You’ve got to sort of forget. You’ve got to leave your ego.”"