http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sh ... attoo.html
JAMES BOND star Daniel Craig is used to playing men with bed-hopping superpowers – but this time he cannot help feeling jealous.
He stars as Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist in new flick The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and admits being in awe of the reporter's way with women.
Daniel muses: "I don't think he's a womaniser. I think he's honest. He meets a woman and they have a conversation, they admire his honesty and they usually end up in bed."
The actor sighs: "That's never worked for me though."
Movie bosses were so keen to have Daniel, 43, play coffee-swilling Blomkvist that they re-arranged filming dates around his previous commitments to new Bond flick Skyfall.
And the craggy heart-throb, who married British actress Rachel Weisz in June, was thrilled to nab the role.
Like tens of millions of others, he got instantly hooked on the best-selling novel by Stieg Larsson on which the film is based. Larsson died in 2004 before the books became world-famous.
Daniel raves: "Someone gave me a copy of the book on holiday and I read it in two days.
"It's one of those books you just don't put down.
"There's this immediate feeling that bad things are going to happen."
He was also immediately fascinated by investigative journalist Blomkvist, who tries to unravel a decades-old mystery of a woman's disappearance.
Daniel says: "He's flawed, he's an egotist, but he's got a very strong moral centre.
"He doesn't bull**** with women, with his work colleagues.
"His ego gets in the way, I think, sometimes.
The A-lister laughs: "Maybe he's got a Jesus Christ complex, like most men. And that's his downfall."
As a fan of the book, Daniel only agreed to the role when he was promised it would be as hard-hitting and shocking as the novel.
The book features a sickening rape scene as well as an uncomfortable portrayal of Swedish Nazi collaborators.
Daniel was initially concerned that US studio bosses would water down such details in order to win a family-friendly PG-13 rating.
He recalls: "The first question I asked was: Is this going to be a PG-13? Is it going to be a movie for everyone? I just would see no point in making a version of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to take the children to see.
"And this movie deals with forbidden or difficult subject matters. It deals with violence towards women, it touches upon Nazism, and all the suppression of Nazism in a country where maybe there hasn't been a lot of discussion.
"And it's those subject matters that interest me."
"Her work was not about suffering — she just got on with it and did it.
"I mean it was like having a 15-year-old teenage boy walking around the set in a bad mood most of the time. For me, that's what Salander in the book was all about."
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the first in the Millennium trilogy of Blomkvist books — all three of which have already been turned into Swedish films.
But Daniel reckons that as a Brit — and especially as a Northerner — he has enough in common with the Swedes to do justice to the role in the US version.
The jovial star chuckles: "I'm from the UK, we have a lot in common. I mean, we are all from the frozen North.
"It gets cold, it's dark for most of the year, we are depressed.
"We like a drink, we like singing, we like storytelling and we like scaring the s*** out of each other."
Despite being so in demand for blockbuster roles like Blomkvist and 007, Daniel insists he does not see himself as a movie star — and says his career is down to simple good luck. He reveals: "I can look at magazines and I can look at other people and go, 'Wow, they are a movie star.'
"But it just makes me laugh if you put me in that bracket.
"This is my life and I can't sort of say this is where I wanted to be, and I've ended up here. It's exceptionally nice to be in this position, it's exceptionally nice.
"I really genuinely count myself very fortunate to have worked and to be working with the people that I've always wanted to work with."
