These are some photos of Daniel Craig at last night’s premiere of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in London. Daniel looks nice – he’s all shaved and dapper because he’s back in his James Bond regimen. Those ears… I swear, his ears are getting bigger and more prominent. I kind of like that, though. Imagine your ankles resting against those ears. Nice, eh?

Anyway, Daniel has a really, really long interview in Time Out London this week. You can read the full thing here – it’s epic, and yes, Daniel is moody, curmudgeon-y bastard. That’s well established. But I also think a small slice of his “personality problem” is that he’s actually got a very dry, caustic wit, and some of the stuff he says is meant to be funny, or “taking the piss” as the Brits say. Here are some highlights:

Daniel Craig can’t smile on demand: The actor is explaining how he’s rubbish at grinning on demand and is always branded ‘mean and moody’ whenever he’s snapped unexpectedly by a photographer. So now he’s giving me his best forced smile. It’s not pretty. ‘I’m just not that person,’ he laughs. ‘So people have a perception that I’m grumpy all the time.’

Daniel on playing a journalist (Mikael Blomkvist): ‘Oh yeah, now I understand! [Laughs] I feel so much better about it! The truth is, I don’t have any problem with journalists – I count some of them as friends – also some of my heroes are journalists, I’m a big fan of Robert Fisk – great people or crazy people who are prepared to stand up for what’s right. And I like the guy in this film, Mikael Blomkvist, but what I like about him is that he’s flawed, he’s a complex, weak, egotistical man on a moral crusade. And all those things combined are interesting, plus he has this brilliant relationship with this girl, Lisbeth Salander, this damaged, hyper-intelligent human being. On paper, they shouldn’t come together, but they do and they respond to each other. She’s the one with the balls in the relationship. He’s happy to watch while she beats someone up.’

On Rooney Mara: ‘There were shenanigans going on while she was being cast… David Fincher was adamant and I get that. Just look at the beginning of “The Social Network”, she’s phenomenal. She’s got something about her, but also she’s physically perfect. When she puts the hoodie on and the leather jacket, she looks like a 14-year-old boy, she looks sexless. Which is perfect. The other side of it is that when she doesn’t have that on, she’s really sexy. That combination is absolutely true to the book. Salander’s someone who would walk down the street and you wouldn’t notice. That’s how she wants it, that’s how she’s survived in her life. She’s switched herself off from humanity and she walks in the shadows.’

On not doing a Swedish accent: ‘Some people in the film have accents and some don’t. I don’t. I had a long conversation with David about it and said that a lot of Scandinavians speak English perfectly. I’m one of those guys. We’ve got Danish people, Swedish people, English people, American people. The only thing that matters, as far as I’m concerned, is that no one sounds American. We sound as European as possible. We’re all speaking one common language and that happens to be English. I didn’t want an accent to get in the way, and for me it would. Salander has no formal education and she has a street accent, it’s quite specific.

On the new Bond film, Skyfall: ‘I’m genuinely really excited because we’ve got a script. The deciding factor for doing “Casino Royale”, even though I was umming and aahhing, going [puts on moody voice] “I don’t know if I want to do it”, was that they showed me the script and I thought: F–k, I’ve got to do this. And I think this one is better. I really do. It’s a totally original story. I read it and it just works as a story. It sounds like a simplistic thing to say, but you read it and you go: “Oh yeah, I get that, yeah, and oh, yes, yes, okay,” and that’s unusual.’

Quantum of Solace didn’t have a script? ‘You swear that you’ll never get involved with s–t like that, and it happens. On “Quantum”, we were f–ked. We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers’ strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, “Never again”, but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes – and a writer I am not. Me and the director [Marc Forster] were the ones allowed to do it. The rules were that you couldn’t employ anyone as a writer, but the actor and director could work on scenes together. We were stuffed. We got away with it, but only just. It was never meant to be as much of a sequel as it was, but it ended up being a sequel, starting where the last one finished.’

Becoming a paparazzi target: ‘Yes, in some respects it’s unavoidable, you can’t deny it. In some respects, I still fight with it now… But I do get it, you can’t just come out and be angry. There’s no f–king point. You’ve got to live your life. I know I’m not that person. I’m never going to arrive at an airport after a 12-hour flight and go, “Oh, hi everyone, it’s so great to see you!” I can’t do it. You’ve got to live your life, you’ve got to enjoy it. And this is a great time, I’m playing James Bond. That’s what makes me secure about it, I’m having a lot of fun with it and getting a kick out of it, and people have a perception that I’m grumpy all the time.’

Vanity in acting: ‘Me and my very close friend call it “modelling”. I don’t find myself particularly good at it. But you find yourself having to model sometimes in movies. It’s kind of that. [He does a ‘Blue Steel’ impression, tipping his chin, giving it the stare.] Some people are really good at it. And then you watch it and you go, “Oh, that’s f–king modelling, what are you doing?” But it is part of movie-making. That’s what I like about David Fincher, too. He’s got an eye for that. He might say, “Tip your chin,” and you know he’s looking at an angle, he’s looking at the lighting. I love that. If you’re too aware of yourself I think it goes wrong, I really do. As long as my ears don’t stick out too much, I’m happy. The greatest asset to an actor is their ego, but it’s also their greatest enemy. The ego gives you the balls to get up there and do it, but it’s also the thing that scuppers you because you’ve got to act, you’ve got to communicate, you’ve got to think about what the other person’s thinking, not whether you look good.’

[From Time Out London]

“As long as my ears don’t stick out too much, I’m happy.” OH NOES. Don’t worry, Daniel. We see your ears and we think about where we’re going to rest our ankles. It’s all good.

But do you see what I mean about Daniel having a caustic sense of humor? In print, it can come off as dark and melancholic, but he’s saying some of this stuff with a wink and a nudge. Also: I would love to see Daniel go all “Blue Steel”.

Photos courtesy of WENN.