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I do agree on your points about Craig's hair. However, I have to disagree with what you say about Dalton and Brosnan. They had the best hair of the franchise (Brosnan especially). Whenever I read Fleming, I only see Dalton. He is Fleming's Bond in my mind's eye.
I'm interested to get @talos7 perspective on Craig's hair in SF. I fluctuate. Sometimes I think it was too short, other times I actually really like how mean and brutal it is. It's a definitely a stark departure from what we had before. It's a move away from the gentleman spy and a step more towards a cold-hearted killer. I'm glad we have one film where they made such a bold move....I wouldn't have wanted it to be Craig's signature look.
A lot has to do with the angle and they way SF is shot. In this respect, Craig was blessed at having Roger Deakins behind the camera. He couldn't shoot an unattractive frame if he tried (though I think his hair looked ugly in the William tell scene).
I recently stumbled upon these Hunger interviews with Craig. I think it may prove my point on the haircut. When shot in profile, he looks fantastic, but a front-on close-up makes his head look a bit round.....
But there's something about Daniel Craig's Vanity Fair photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz that I seriously like. He just has such swagger and there's something really tough and intimidating there. I think the hair helps. It just shows that this isn't your 'Daddy's Bond'....He's a diamond in the rough, but with still has that innate suavity.
When you watch him in motion in the below video, you can see how damn good he looks! So bloody charismatic and mean....
https://www.vanityfair.com/video/watch/daniel-craig-s-photo-shoot-with-annie-leibovitz
On the other hand, Brosnan's hair in DAD reminds me of model Dick Orme who graced many Fleming novel covers in the early publications.
Much of the fluctuation is simply the reality of shooting over months, often chronologically out of order. Bond may be filmed walking through a doorway; the follow shot of him entering the adjacent room may be filmed days, weeks or even months later, Even if it's just a week, the hair will look a little different. I have many clients who get a cut a week or so prior to a big event because they like better after it's grown out a few days. It would be virtually impossible to do a haircut daily, unless it was done only using clippers and guards, and even that would not match exactly .
As far as the "bold move", I agree, but would have handled it differently. In the PTS, I would have had Bond look basically the same as he did in CR and Qos; following being shot then "enjoying death" he would have shed all of the trappings of his prior life and his hair is much shorter. Maybe he's cutting it himself or going to some guy on the beach who's running a makeshift barber shop. This would have made it more about disillusionment than age.
I usually have my haircut at least 3-4 days before I attend a wedding or something.
+1
"My hair like Jesus wore it, Hallelujah I adore it,
Hallelujah Mary loved her son, why don't my mother love me?..."
SF is without doubt the worst haircut of any actor to play Bond. A grey skinhead is definitely not what I picture when I read a Fleming novel.
Dalton's and Brozza's 80's/90's big hair is a step away from the 50's novels, but still feels more Bondian to me than any cut Craig has donned.
Connery's hair looked most Bondian in GF, TB and YOLT, and Moore's looked the best in LALD and TMWTGG.
Lazenby probably had the most natural Bondian cut, which was based on Connery's but had the slightly longer length on the sideburns, which I always thought looked ultra cool and edgy - and was actually his hair and not a wig either.
Also, it references Craig's best hair moments from CR, namely:
But the SF, short has has serious bad boy energy...
Before someone snickers at talking about eyebrows , Connery had a significant amount of refining and shaping of his. There's no way Cubby was going to let him sport his "Darby O'Gill caterpillars ;)
My eyebrows have lost definition over the years, a bit grayer and I fear starting to look like Craig's.
I did a play a couple years ago in which they were colored in a bit. I thought that made me look considerably older.....like Roger in AVTAK.
A shorter haircut alone would have made him , while older, look more vigorous.
I thought he looked better while promoting the film. He had his old LALD haircut and looked years younger.
Here is Clint Eastwood; the first photo is from 1982’s “Tightrope” while the second is from 11 years later in 1993’s “ In the Line of Fire” . It’s not that Clint looks younger, but the shorter hair absolutely makes him look more vigorous.
I always loved Eastwood's hair. I sometimes wonder if Dalton, being a huge fan of Clint was inspired a bit by his hair; full on the sides and back, a bit shorter on top.
Of course during the era Dalton played Bond, most men had some length to their hair. You really didn't see many tapered or clipper cuts then.
I remember in '86 as a kid going to a salon and trying to describe Connery's Bond hairstyle. I wasn't familiar with the terminology: tapered, guards, etc. It ended up looking more Don Johnson or something. When I asked her to use clippers, it ended up more of a skateboarder haircut that Ricky Schroder might have worn on SILVER SPOONS.
Physically, Sean looked great in NSNA but his hair did him no favors, a more refined, less spiky, version of this Red October style would have looked great.
Of the rest, I really like Brosnan's in TWINE and DAD.
Generally, my personal taste leans towards Craig's style in all of his films except for SF.
They seem to have nailed it for NTTD.
Yes I agree. Connery's later style in NSNA would have looked better with either a more refined Red October look, or even the style he adopted in Cuba, only a few years earlier in 1979, as that was pretty much his Goldfinger cut reprised, only greyer and older (without the moustache, obviously)!
I think his hair was probably too short in SF. He still looked cool though. It looks like a fresh haircut that probably needed a week or two to set in.
I'm curious if anyone thinks Craig had a haircut just after the production launch. His hair looks longer at the press conference, but it may just be the styling and angle of the photos.
On some occasions, it does get a little similar to that bloke from the Inbetweeners. Since I was 16 and at school when CR came out, a lot of people had this hairstyle. I wonder if Daniel was wearing Lynx Africa.
If that weren't 2006, I'd say that bottom shot of Craig looks like a COVID-19 home haircut gone wrong. Lopsided and uneven, choppy on the top.
Still, it was such a departure from what had come before. I do wonder now if the hairstylist wasn't slightly inspired by Matt Damon's shorter haircuts in the BOURNE movies.
Had Craig kept his unveiling conference hairstyle, maybe we'd have fewer BOURNE comparisons?
I remember my barber back in 2006 using a thinning razor to give me that choppy top Craig look. She would use a number 4 on the sides and back. If I wanted it shorter, a number 3. The 4 seemed to be the most accurate.
Haha..I should add though, I actually think his hair looks good during the train scene with Vesper. It shouldn't really be in that line-up (perhaps the Ocean Club isn't so bad either). His hair on the train is similar to his hair at the SP premiere - albeit a tad messier in CR.
The pictures I posted above are probably the most egregious hair moments in the Craig-era for me. Otherwise, it mostly looks good. I think the best hairstyle is in QOS, SP and (probably, based off the trailers) NTTD.
I disagree though about his hair during the press launch. I think it was a good idea to go shorter. It has a more contemporary and militaristic feel to it. Though I wish they had just made it look as it did in Layer Cake. In that film, Craig channelled Steve McQueen levels of cool.
Though, there are numerous moments in CR, where his hair looks Layer Cake-esque. It's only really those clangers above that glaringly stick out.
I wish we had more NTTD to do look at! I want desperately to see this in theatres, but also desperately to forensically go through the screencaps and obsess over Daniel Craig's hair.
I'm pretty obsessed on haircuts as well. I always have been. Craig's LAYER CAKE haircut was very Bondian. I really like the way Craig's hair looks during the M sequences in CR, particularly as she's debriefing him on his assignment to beat Le Chiffre at Texas Hold-em.