CNN style Arts | How Daniel Craig’s body became his James Bond signature

The year was 2006. Up on the cinema screen, Daniel Craig rose from the azure sea somewhere in the Bahamas, water clinging to abs and trunks alike. In the theater this writer was in, a woman, laboring over each word, let out what many others were thinking: “Oh. My. God.” “Casino Royale” was 29 minutes into its run time, but in that moment a new James Bond was born. 
 
For that moment audiences have Craig to thank, but also someone else: his conditioning coach, Simon Waterson. In the 15 years since the actor was cast as 007, he has turned to Waterson time and again. Now, with Craig’s fifth and final outing as Bond in “No Time to Die,” they’re warming down together for the last time. 
 
Waterson, a former Navy man, was involved in the franchise before Craig, as personal trainer to Pierce Brosnan in “The World Is Not Enough.” When Craig came on board, he arrived with a cigarette and a bacon sandwich. But he also arrived with a vision, Waterson said. “From the very beginning he never wanted a trainer — he wanted a training partner,” he remembers. “Whatever he did, I did.”  —read more—