Daniel Craig recounts drunken wooing of Sam Mendes

Hollywood is just like the real world: sometimes all you need is a little liquid courage to approach that person you’ve been eying from across the party. Except in this case, Daniel Craig wasn’t looking for a date – he was looking for a director. In a recent interview with Esquire magazine, Craig recalls the unusual (and less rigorously professional than one might expect from Hollywood) circumstances under which his collaboration with latest-James-Bond director Sam Mendes began: a drunken proposal at Hugh Jackman‘s house.

“It’s a very showbizzy story,” Craig recalls. “I was at Hugh Jackman‘s house in New York. It was a soirée – we were in a play together – and Sam [film and theater director Sam Mendes] was there. I’d had a few too many drinks and I went, ‘How do you fancy directing a Bond?’ And he kind of looked at me, and he went,’‘Yeah!’ And it snowballed from there.” Now, years later, we’re mere months away from “Bond 23” – Skyfall.

Later in the interview, Craig also describes his emotional investment in the franchise: “Bond movies live or die on their popularity,” he says. “They force you to care about what people think. And I’m involved [in the films] on a very deep level. I have it in my mind all the time…So there’s that kind of pressure, and that’s an enemy in any art form, acting especially.”

Skyfall comes to theaters on November 9.