Casino Royale - James Bond Plays Poker
James Bond is gearing up to hit the big screen for the 21st time. Daniel Craig plays the new - and improved - Bond in "Casino Royale" . He's cool, sexy and suave. He doesn't care if his martinis are shaken or stirred...and our Bond plays a mean game of poker.
"Casino Royale", which deals with Bond's rise to "00" status, has changed a bit from Ian Fleming's original book. For example, Chemin de Fer , a French version of high-stakes baccarat, was the game of choice in the South of France when the book was written. The current film features a game of high stakes No-limit Texas Holdem in Montenegro, a Slavic country in Southeastern Europe. Bond's nemesis, Le Chiffre, played by Dutch actor, Mads Mikkelsen, uses his poker winnings to fund terrorist activities.
The film's producers made the decision to change the game for obvious reasons. As Michael Wilson says, "Today the big stakes game is Texas Hold'em. It's not unreasonable for ten, twenty million dollar pots to be seen. So, when we came to think about what the game would be, Chemin de Fer didn't seem appropriate but Texas Hold'em was."
This required the actors, including Craig, to be schooled in the game. Apparently, they took to it quite well. Rumor has it that the cast and crew were often caught playing a spot of NLHE during breaks in filming. Mads Mikkelsen reports that, although he had a tough time beating up Daniel Craig on-screen, he had no difficulty besting him on the felt.
"Casino Royale" opens in theaters across the United States on November 17th! In the meantime, you can check out trailers for the film online at Movies.com .