Daniel Craig: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked
3. Geordie - Our Friends In The North
Way back in the mists of time, Craig was an unknown hunk trying to make some headway in the acting biz. Hed got a few bits and bobs on low-rent British TV (Between the Lines, Heartbeat), but he was rather treading water over here. Hed also been in two episodes of the last series of the American series Zorro before it got cancelled. It wasnt entirely his fault that it got cancelled, but its probably difficult for a young man not to feel some residual awkwardness in that situation. Then in 1995 he was cast in Our Friends in the North alongside Mark Strong, Christopher Eccleston and Gina McKee, all of whom built the rest of their careers on the spring which Our Friends in the North provided. It was here that Craig started to really flex his acting muscles properly. The story follows a group of four friends as they grow apart and cross paths over the next 30 years against the backdrop of everything interesting which was happening in Britain at the time, with Craig playing a Geordie called Geordie. This was the first time Craig really got the chance to do the emotionally-vulnerable-but-also-ultraviolent-double-hard-bastard thing which hed refine in Layer Cake. The most impressive thing, though, is Geordies slow descent from honest, bright-eyed, loyal pitman to a hollowed-out middle-aged gangster with great skill and nuance. His Newcastle accents a bit dodgy, though. Sometimes he sounds like hes a proper radgie from Wallsend, sometimes he sounds a very unconvincing Russian spy. Given that hes playing a guy called Geordie, youd think that hed have got the memo about maybe playing up the Geordie aspect of the character.
