10 Best Movie Performances From Nameless Characters

The early 2000s were a melting pot for British crime and gangster flicks.

Having worked alongside Guy Ritchie as a long-time producing partner of his, Matthew Vaughn burst onto the scene with his take on the genre in 2004 with the suave and sophisticated Layer Cake.

It's quite frankly astonishing that this film marked Vaughn’s directorial debut considering just how good it was at the time as well as it is today, and one overwhelming reason for that is due to Daniel Craig’s scene-stealing performance as ‘XXXX’. Craig’s portrayal of the nameless, smooth-talking criminal and cocaine dealer is often referred to as the role that saw the James Bond gig land on his lap, which makes a whole lot of sense considering there are apparent similarities between the two characters.

Layer Cake’s recipe consists of some truly big Hollywood hitters, including Michael Gambon, Sienna Miller and Tom Hardy. However, it’s Craig who takes the cake as his effortless charm and natural charisma take centre-stage as the possibility of becoming 007 soon became an inevitability after word began to spread relating to the role at hand.

Any performance that directly leads to being cast for a character as legendary and lucrative as James Bond is worthy of ranking high up anybody’s list, but Daniel Craig’s work in Layer Cake rightly ranks high amongst his own very best to date and long may that continue.