He gained international fame by playing the fictional secret agent James Bond for five installments in the film series: Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die (2021).

[1][2] After training at the National Youth Theatre in London and graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1991, Craig began his career on stage.

He gained prominence for his supporting roles in films such as Elizabeth (1998), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Road to Perdition (2002), Layer Cake (2004), and Munich (2005).

He entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1988, and graduated in 1991 after a three-year course under the tutelage of Colin McCormack, an actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[9] Having played minor roles in the miniseries Anglo-Saxon Attitudes and the shows Covington Cross and Boon, he appeared in November 1993 as Joe in the Royal National Theatre's production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

Appearing alongside Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee and Mark Strong, Craig's part in the series is considered his breakthrough role.

[26][27] In the same year, Craig guest-starred in an episode of the HBO horror anthology series Tales from the Crypt and was featured in the BBC television film Saint-Ex.

[31] Craig appeared in three films in 1998: the independent drama Love and Rage,[32] the biographical drama Elizabeth, in which he played Jesuit priest John Ballard, who was executed for being involved in the Babington Plot, an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England,[22][33] and the BBC television film Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), in which Craig played small-time thief George Dyer who becomes the lover and muse of painter Francis Bacon, who was portrayed by Derek Jacobi.

[37][38] Also in 2000, Craig co-starred alongside Toni Collette in the dark comedy Hotel Splendide and was featured in I Dreamed of Africa, based on the life of Kuki Gallmann (played by Kim Basinger).

[48][49] On stage, Craig starred opposite Michael Gambon in the original production of Caryl Churchill's play A Number from September to November 2002 at the Royal Court Theatre.

[50][51] Craig received a London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor nomination for his role as a man who is cloned twice by his father.

[54][55] The crime thriller Layer Cake, directed by Matthew Vaughn, starred Craig as an unnamed London-based cocaine supplier known only as "XXXX" in the film's credits.

[56] Kevin Crust, writing for the Los Angeles Times, praised Craig's "stunningly suave performance", while Roger Ebert thought he was "fascinating" in the film.

[61][62] He then made a brief appearance in the Hungarian film Fateless as a United States Army Sergeant who takes a liking to a teenage boy who survives life in concentration camps.

[65][66] Also in 2005, Craig starred in the BBC television film Archangel – based on Robert Harris' novel – as an English academic who stumbles upon a notebook believed to have belonged to Joseph Stalin.

[67][68] According to various sources, EON Productions had become aware of Craig and begun to consider him as a future Bond candidate because of Our Friends in the North in 1996[69] or Elizabeth in 1998.

Most notably four of the five actors who had previously portrayed Bond – Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton – called his casting a good decision.

[93] He co-starred with Hugh Jackman in a limited engagement of the drama A Steady Rain, on Broadway, which played in autumn 2009 at the Schoenfeld Theatre, for which he gained positive reviews.

[94][95] In August 2010, Craig starred as crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist in David Fincher's 2011 adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

[96][97] The next year, he took up a leading role in Dream House, a psychological thriller directed by Jim Sheridan and co-starring Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts and Marton Csokas.

Craig then co-starred with Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde in Cowboys & Aliens, an American science fiction Western film, based on Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's 2006 graphic novel of the same name.

[99][100] The same year, Craig provided his voice to Steven Spielberg's animated film The Adventures of Tintin in 2011, playing the villainous pirate Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine and his ancestor Red Rackham in a dual role.

[103][104] The same year, he appeared as James Bond in the short film Happy and Glorious, in which he escorted Queen Elizabeth II to the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.

[112][113] Craig appeared in a modern production of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello at the Off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop throughout late 2016 and early 2017.

[117] In 2019, Craig starred in Rian Johnson's black comedy murder-mystery Knives Out as Benoit Blanc, a detective investigating the sudden death of a family patriarch.

[123] After experiencing delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Craig's fifth Bond film, No Time to Die, was released in September 2021, receiving favourable reviews.

And that’s really what appealed to me, to be working with such a wonderful person, the most creative and exciting people.”[140] Craig will next star in a third Benoit Blanc film titled Wake Up Dead Man,[141] with Johnson to direct again.

[142] In 2007, Craig and British Prime Minister Tony Blair took part in the United Kingdom's Comic Relief charity fundraiser, ultimately raising more than USD $90 million.

"[152] In 2019, Craig appeared in a video with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and launched the UNMAS Safe Ground campaign to turn minefields into playing fields.

[171] They began dating in December 2010, and were married in a private ceremony in New York City on 22 June 2011 with only four guests in attendance, including Craig's daughter and Weisz's son.