Mads Mikkelsen, who starred as terrorism financier Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, revealed that Daniel Craig, the James Bond star, was the only person on set who did not know how to play poker. Despite the film being centered around the card game, Craig reportedly had no idea what he was doing during the high-stakes scenes.
Daniel Craig was the only one in Casino Royale who didn’t play poker
In a recent sit-down with Variety, Mads Mikkelson, who is set to appear in Bryan Fuller’s feature film debut Dust Bunny, revealed a surprising detail from the set of Casino Royale. Critics and fans widely consider the film one of the best James Bond movies of all time.
Mikkelson revealed that star Daniel Craig did not actually know how to play poker, despite the game being a central plot point in the film. “Daniel Craig was the only guy in that film who did not know how to play poker, and he ran away with 150 million of my dollars,” Mikkelsen said.
“I played poker. I played a lot of poker during shooting that film, and all the guys at the table were big poker players. And as I said, Daniel had no clue. We hated him for it. It was a fun experience,” Mikkelsen added.
He also spoke about the pressure Craig faced at the time. “It was very big for me, but obviously it was gigantic for him. But Daniel, and we take it for granted that he was that big, was just like anyone else from Europe making small indie films. That was a lot of pressure on him. The crying eye, the blood from the eye. Yeah, we tried all kinds of different things. Put some makeup in there, add something in my eye. Everything was just painful. So we ended up just doing CGI on it,” Mikkelsen said.
Mikkelsen further remarked that the famous torture scene from Casino Royale was his favorite moment to film. “Listen, he took 150 million from me. So I think he deserved that whipping percussion tool that’s pointed on both ends,” he added.
Casino Royale remains one of the most celebrated James Bond films of all time.
Originally reported by Sourav Chakraborty on ComingSoon.
