James Bond isn’t afraid to commandeer aircraft, but is the current Bond – Daniel Craig – a pilot in real life too?
No, Daniel Craig is not a pilot; nor does he have a pilot license. In fact, he didn’t even have an international driver’s license for a few years before he moved to New York! His most famous character, James Bond, is quite the pilot though, so perhaps that is where the confusion comes from.
Read on to learn more about James Bond and his pilot skills!
Daniel Had to Take a Driving Course When He Moved to New York
James Bond may not exactly be famous for being a law-abiding citizen, but the actors who play him are not exempt from laws, especially in the United States. Daniel Craig moved to Manhattan, New York – along with his wife, Rachel Weisz – he did not have a driving license that was valid there.
According to US law, foreign citizens must – if planning to settle in the country – take a course on safe driving, and then pass a written exam as well as a road safety test, before being allowed to drive on the road.
Daniel took driving lessons at the Professional Driving School of the Americas on Staten Island. After a private five-hour lesson, he took both exams and passed them with ease.
James Bond Shows Off His Flying Skills in Many Movies
James Bond has not always been a star pilot. In fact, he hasn’t always been a pilot at all. In Ian’s Fleming’s original books, Bond did not know how to fly an airplane. However, the Bond we see in movies is at least somewhat of a pilot, although his skills have varied throughout the years.
For instance, in the earlier movies, whenever James Bond was seen at the controls of an airplane, he usually ended up crashing it. But each new film seemed to give him a supernatural ability to do anything, and so his flying skills improved as his stunts got more and more daring.
Some of these stunts have even been criticized for being outright impossible. For example, in the Spectre trailer, Daniel Craig’s James Bond is flying a helicopter and turns it upside down! That’s right, the helicopter performs a 360° corkscrew stunt, with Bond in the cockpit the whole time. While some people were upset because this stunt seemed ridiculous, experts weighed in saying that it could actually be achieved under certain conditions.
