Casino Royale: Mads Mikkelsen reveals that Daniel Craig was “suck” at poker
Mads Mikkelsen revealed a funny anecdote about the making of Casino Royale: Daniel Craig is actually not very (if at all) good at poker.
Most casino players are often fans of James Bond movies. In Casino Royaleremake of the first James Bond from 1967, THE poker sequence takes place in a hotel in Montenegro: inside, Bond (Daniel Craig) was staked by MI6 to participate in an international hold’em type poker game organized by Mads Mikkelsen alias Le Cipher. In an interview with GQ, he revealed behind the scenes of the filming of this legendary poker game (at 10 million dollars entry):
“Everyone around this table knew how to play poker except Daniel. He had no idea. He sucked.”
Daniel Craig would also have been entitled to training to maintain his posture and train to hold the cards and tokens…. Mads Mikkelsen considers himself far from being a novice in the field. He was then amused by the outcome of the scene:
“And that was the worst thing he of all people ever had to beat (my character) and make all my money!”
Mikkelsen also recognizes that the course of the game is quite implausible: “The hands we play are crazy, if you know poker you’re hallucinating. The nature of the bets had to be believable, but obviously the hands had to be easily recognizable for an audience that doesn’t play poker, so these were pretty crazy hands.“.
The game ends with the emblematic victory of the new 007 which ends on a straight flush out of nowhere. Martin Campbell had yet confessed to having spent hours watching the classics as The Cincinnati Kid or 5 Card Stud to restore the authenticity of poker.
