If there’s anybody who knows how hard it is to be James Bond (besides 007's band of leading men), it’s former Royal Marine Simon Waterson: he's been James Bond’s personal trainer for 23 years, as well as training 16 Bond girls and plenty more cast members since starting on The World is Not Enough. When Daniel Craig, whom Waterson trained throughout the actor's 007 shift, appeared on the April 2020 cover of British GQ, Waterson saw an embodiment of his ethos as a trainer: “It looked obtainable and ‘whoa’ and natural – that he was the product of what he does.”
When it comes to the ‘Calvin Klein’ male-body ideal, Waterson believes a focus on looks rather than function can lead to a miserable experience for any of us mere mortals. “People are too strict on themselves and they don’t give themselves enough breathing space to enjoy themselves and the fruits of life,” said Waterson. “If you want to look like these people, your life is basically over. You’ll look great but you’ll feel terrible. That’s a hard message to give to people.”
Having trained everyone from Chris Pratt to Donald Glover, Waterson knows how to build an action star, and so much of that, he says, is because during his five-film stint, Craig established exactly what that looks like today. “Whether that’s Marvel characters or someone else going, ‘Well, if he does it, we’ve got to do it,’ I think he did set a precedent,” said Waterson. “He did raise the bar and everyone else just followed.”
After working on The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan's “more debonaire and stylish” Bond, Waterson saw an entirely different training approach from new-boy Craig: “Daniel always had a clear vision of what he wanted and how to evolve the character physically and mentally,” Waterson explained. “With Casino Royale, it was quite big, imposing, shocking: ‘I can do this. My physique is capable of doing the job that I’m portraying.’”
The idea of looking the part is nothing new, but the way athleticism can inform and elevate a character is an increasingly-central aspect of an actor's training. Now the latest Bond has hung up his gun holster, folded away the minuscule blue trunks and (spoilers) been blown up, we asked Waterson how he helped Daniel Craig become Bond, and how training changed throughout the films, from Casino Royale to his No Time To Die Bond swansong.
Pre-Casino Royale
“As an ex-military man, I think I was uniquely placed to understand the discipline, mental strength and stamina required in order to train to become the ultimate cinema superspy, James Bond. Luckily, Dan was no shirk when it came to hard work, so I devised a programme that had diversity and would suit the role of Bond, pushing him to his limits and beyond, like the character demands.
“Dan had briefed me on his goals and was determined to get stuck in. No stone was left unturned in terms of developing speed, strength, stamina and a sharp, focused mind. I'm a stickler when it comes to attention to detail, so posture, definition, movement and confidence were at the top of the list. I also wanted functioning muscle – there's no point in having great muscles if they can't be used in a beneficial way like speeding across the ground, climbing, jumping and fighting.
“The workouts were a blend of powerlifting, with a lot of compound exercises thrown in. This allows you to work out extremely hard with heavy weights, and because it's so intense the heart rate is elevated. Therefore, you are working not only on the development of nice lean muscle tissue, but you're also getting a bit of cardio as well and keeping your body fat down.
“After a few sessions it was clear Dan was a tough, athletic guy, so I decided the way to get the best results was to add a motivational element – ie, competition. I always recommend if you can work out with a friend then it's ten times easier, so rather than just coach him, we actually trained together, pushing each other that bit further.
“After a few months of training, Dan was lifting and performing like an athlete. He had full focus on what he wanted and the discipline from me to help him execute it. Even now, I still can't believe the physical changes he achieved. It just shows that with willpower and dedication you can achieve anything.”
From Casino Royale to Quantum of Solace
“If you have amazing athletic performance, your aesthetic looks great because of that performance. We never train for aesthetic – we train for athleticism. Nothing about the way he looks is that conscious; it's about what he needs to do on a daily basis.
“The workouts would change because the output required would change. For Quantum of Solace there would be more cardiovascular and agility-based work so he can get up and down off the floor, leap round corners, dive through windows, get in and out of cars easy. Everything becomes faster and more efficient. The nature of that performance then has a calorific burn on the body, which means the body would drop weight because you've kept your nutrition very similar. As long as your output exceeds your input, you're going to maybe drop a few pounds and look a little bit leaner, more athletic.”
From Quantum of Solace to Skyfall
“All my workouts are relevant to what Daniel is going to have to do, what they're going to ask of him as far as stunts go, and portraying speed. It's about breaking down the script, seeing what he has to do: whether that's sprinting up stairs, over balustrades, rolling, getting up and down off the ground very quickly, fight choreography. Then, in the room, I try to condition those sequences in the workout.
“I take things from different pro sports, whether that be rugby (good for ground-to-feet – those drills are fantastic) football and boxing (quick feet, quick hands, hand-eye coordination, great for sprinting but also taking a weapon out of a holster without thinking about it) – just creating all those slick sequences and patterns that make the body move really efficiently. As long as we condition that again and again – sprint drills, cones, jumps, all those things – he then goes to the stunt room, where he's given the confidence that his body is capable of doing the things he has to do. He does his choreography there, then goes to perform it.”
From Skyfall to Spectre
“It’s still working the same principles: breaking down the script, seeing what is relevant and training for relevance. You never know what sequences are going to be in there – like sprinting down Westminster, things in swimming pools, high-rise scaffolding, rooftops, jumping on a bike. You’ve got to have a good base fitness and then micromanage the tiny things that seem simple, but it’s always the little things that catch you out – things like a set of stairs, then going through a door. Or a sprint in the midst of a fight scene. Or pulling off a fight scene in a confined space.
“Again, it’s fine as long as I break things down. There is a little bit of aesthetic in Spectre too: it goes from high-octane scenes to answering the door without a shirt on. You still want to feel like you’ve got confidence, that you're portraying that correctly too.”
From Spectre to No Time to Die
“Movie to movie, the goalposts change with age, so the process takes slightly longer. What took six-to-eight months in Casino takes seven-to-eight months the next time, and so on and so on, until you get to No Time To Die, where he’s a little bit older and the process takes a year-plus.
“There were lots of different elements and content within that movie. We primarily focused on agility. It's all movement: natural body movements, not about how much weight you can shift and all that business. It's how you're moving and feeling. That's the primary thing, especially with the content of the movie: movement, speed, agility and processing things very, very quickly.
“When it comes to actually getting through the movie and filming it, that's very very tough. The majority of the work you've done in prep, so when you get to the filming you're ready to go and a lot of it is maintenance and recovery and refuelling like an athlete would. An athlete would have a pre-season, season and post-season, and that's exactly how we roll. We have the same protocols and I draw many parallels from the athletic world, as you can probably tell, and utilise them in the film world. The only difficult thing is that athletes – football players, NFL players – they get a lot more recovery. They play on a Saturday, then they get Sunday/Monday off. We don't have that. We're trying to refuel or stretch periodically during the day to be preventative.
“I've done a lot of movies and there are very few people who can pull this kind of thing off. We always look from the outside in – this is what they're paid to do and they get so much to do it – but it is brutal. Whether it's Bond, Mission Impossible or Bourne, it is hard graft from six in the morning until six at night, six days a week for six-to-eight months. We're constantly evolving, but you've just got to train for your age. You're not trying to break any records. That's the whole thing: it's just complete health and well-being. The biggest thing when you get older is making sure you have really good recovery and really good nutrition. The recovery is treatments, but also rest phases, napping and sleeping and making sure you're getting the right stuff into your body.”
