When you’ve played an iconic role like James Bond for so long, your friends start to bring that persona into your personal life to mess with you.
During a recent episode of Variety’s Actors on Actors, Skyfall costars Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem got together to discuss their respective careers, along with their time onscreen as a pair.
Craig starts the conversation by asking: “Are we supposed to talk intelligently for 30 minutes? I’m not sure I’m capable of doing that. And I know I’m not capable of talking intelligently about acting for 30 minutes.”
Luckily, they don’t end up taking things too seriously, which leads to some interesting annecdotes--including Bardem talking about the time he surprised his friend by dressing up as a Bond girl.
It all started when the Spainish actor brings up how much they have in common, which includes the fact that they were born one day and one year apart. Unsurprisingly, that segued into the time the celebrated their birthdays together, leading to the hilarious story.
“We actually celebrated our birthday together once,” Bardem says.
Upon hearing that, Craig begins laughing immediately, replying, “I do remember you were in drag, but I know that’s a whole other story.”
“Coming out of a cake,” Bardem continues. “I was supposed to be the Bond girl that night. And oh my God I was.”
While the pair don’t go too much deeper into the anecdote, Javier does bring it up later on. When talking about singing in Being The Ricardos, Bardem admits he isn’t very musical “apart from coming out of birthday cakes dressed like a Bond girl” and “[singing] ‘Happy Birthday To You’ in my best Marilyn Monroe impersonation.”
The other thing these two have in common beside their birthdays? They both play rugby.
“I’m always saying that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan,” Bardem joked. “There were 20 of us. Of course I would be in the national team.”
Check out their whole conversation above.