‘SNL’: Daniel Craig Confirms ‘No Time to Die’ Is His Final James Bond Movie During Monologue

Daniel Craig had some pretty major news to share with his fans during his Saturday Night Live monologue. In his opening bit, not only did he show off his “favorite scene” from his upcoming film No Time To Die, but he also shared that the movie will feature his last time stepping into the James Bond role.

“Now, this next James Bond film is going to be my last, but it’s going to be one of the best because we got Phoebe Waller-Bridge from Fleabag to come and help with some of the dialogue,” Craig shared, before joking about how Waller-Bridge impacted that script. “It’s not going to be that different, but every so often I will turn to the camera and I will say, ‘The name’s Bond, James Bond. Is it bad that I fancy the Pope?’”

In the months leading up to the release of the film, there has been much speculation into Craig’s future as Bond. The Knives Out actor has actually addressed his future with the series on a couple of different occasions before his SNL confirmation.

In November, Craig told USA Today that No Time To Die will be his final turn as 007.

“I’ve had a really good run, and I think doing this movie was the right thing to do,” Craig told the publication. “It was the right thing to do one more.”

As for why Craig decided to do one more Bond film after 2015’s Spectre, he told Esquire that he wanted another turn as the suave spy because he didn’t want to live with any regrets about the role.

“If that had been it, the world would have carried on as normal, and I would have been absolutely fine,” he said in December. “But somehow it felt like we needed to finish something off. If I’d left it at Spectre, something at the back of my head would have been going, ‘I wish I’d done one more.’”

He added that he “always had a kind of secret idea about the whole lot in my head, and where I wanted to take it. And Spectre wasn’t that… But this feels like it is.”

It will be some time until fans get to see Craig back in action as Bond in No Time To Die. On Wednesday, it was announced via Facebook that the film, which was originally scheduled for release in April, would be pushed back to November because of ongoing concerns around the coronavirus crisis.

“MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of NO TIME TO DIE will be postponed until November 2020,” the statement from Universal Pictures and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli read. “The film will be released in the U.K. on November 12, 2020 with worldwide release dates to follow, including the US launch on November 25, 2020.”