‘I probably said so many things wrong at lunch that I killed myself’: A director promised their shot at a $7.8 billion saga didn’t get the gig, but the studio stole his casting suggestion anyway

His name is one that comes up regularly in the Casino Royale experience on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

Not only did he get a call from the studio telling him the job was basically his if he wanted it, but he even suggested his Layer Cake lead Daniel Craig for the part of 007, leaving him to wonder if a fateful lunch where he should have been offered the gig may have actually nuked his chances instead.

“It was a really weird time when I got a phone call saying, “would you be interested in meeting about doing Casino Royale?” And I was like ‘oh my god, yes, I would.’ So I had this. I read the book again and went and met with them. We all got on, actually, I thought, really well. And then, welcome to Hollywood, I got a phone call from MGM saying ‘you’ve got the gig, don’t tell anyone.’ And like okay, I get it. And they said, you’re going to go meet EON and they’re going to tell you. So I go for this meeting, and I’m pretending that I don’t know, and all I’m thinking is ‘come on can we cut to the chase?’ I’m ready to go.

And ironically, we talked about who I’d cast, and I said ‘what about Daniel?’ And they’re like, we’re not sure about Daniel. And I was like, okay, and then MGM told me I had it. And then I had the lunch, I had the meetings, and at the end of it, I wasn’t offered it. So I went home thoroughly confused and I rang up the chairman of MGM. And I said ‘what’s going on?’ And they said, ah, we spoke too soon, ‘you ain’t got it. And we’re going to cast Daniel.’ And I was like ‘oh, okay.’ I probably said so many things wrong at lunch that I killed myself.”

Layer Cake played a huge part in proving Craig had the chops for Bond, but the public weren’t exactly sold on his hiring at the time, either. It sounds as if we can at least partially attribute that to Vaughn, even if we’re left wondering what went down during the meeting for his so-called “guarantee” of helming Casino Royale failing to materialize.