Mads Mikkelsen Says That Daniel Craig Sucked While Doing This in ‘Casino Royale’

Mads Mikkelsen once shared a behind-the-scenes story from the set of Casino Royale that might surprise fans. In an interview with GQ, the actor revealed that Daniel Craig, who played James Bond, wasn’t very good at poker during the filming of the movie.

Mikkelsen, who played the villain Le Chiffre, said he had a lot of experience with poker and found himself at an advantage during the high-stakes card scenes.

“Everybody knew how to play poker around that table, except for one, Daniel,” he said. “He had no clue. He sucked. And it was the worst thing ever that he, of all people, had to beat [my character] and win all my money. It was like, ‘This is wrong.’ Well I got him back with the rope, so that’s good.”

He added that the poker hands in the film were intentionally extreme to make the betting scenes dramatic and easy to follow for the audience.

“The hands we are playing are insane, so if you’re a poker player, you’ll go, ‘What?’ We just wanted to make the nature of the betting believable, but the hands obviously had to be easily recognizable for an audience that doesn’t play poker, so they were quite crazy hands,” Mikkelsen explained.

The 2006 spy film, directed by Martin Campbell, follows James Bond as he tries to defeat Le Chiffre in a poker game to topple his criminal organization. The movie also features Eva Green, Caterina Murino, Jeffrey Wright, and Judi Dench.

Mikkelsen also described his character as a different kind of villain. “He’s a normal person, he’s not taking over the world,” he said.

“He’s not one of those guys. He’s in it for the money, and if Bond didn’t bump into his way, they would never have met. It’s not that he’s after anyone. He’s vulnerable, there’s people above him, people who are used to violence in a different way than he is. He’s a different kind of villain, that’s for sure.”

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