Daniel Craig's Real Name: Daniel Wroughton Craig

Quick answer: Daniel Craig's full name is Daniel Wroughton Craig. He was born on March 2, 1968, in Chester, Cheshire, England. He played James Bond in five films, from Casino Royale (2006) to No Time to Die (2021), and plays the detective in the Knives Out mysteries. He acts under his birth name (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files him as "Craig, Daniel, 1968-." Its note reads "b. Mar. 2, 1968, Chester, England; birth name: Daniel Wroughton Craig." Britannica's quick facts give the same full name. Wroughton is his middle name.

Britannica says his father was a steelworker and later a pub owner, and his mother taught art. After his parents divorced, he moved to Liverpool with his mother and older sister. His mother often went to the Everyman Theatre and encouraged his interest in acting. He was in a school play at six, the family moved to Hoylake in 1977, and he left school at 16. He joined the National Youth Theatre in 1984 and graduated from London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1991.

Career highlights

His early film work included The Power of One (1992). He appeared on stage in Angels in America at the Royal National Theatre. He became better known in Britain through the miniseries Our Friends in the North (1996). Other credits include Elizabeth (1998), Love Is the Devil (1998), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and Road to Perdition (2002). He played Ted Hughes in Sylvia (2003) and starred in Layer Cake (2004), Munich (2005), and The Golden Compass (2007).

His casting as Bond in Casino Royale was controversial because he did not fit the physical type of Ian Fleming's novels. Critics were largely won over, and he returned in Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die, his final Bond film. He also starred in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Logan Lucky (2017). He plays the detective in Knives Out (2019), Glass Onion (2022), and Wake Up Dead Man (2025). In 2024 he starred in Luca Guadagnino's Queer, adapted from William S. Burroughs. On Broadway he has appeared in A Steady Rain (2009), Betrayal (2013), and the title role of Macbeth (2022).

He married actress Rachel Weisz in 2011, the year they co-starred in Dream House. His first marriage, to Fiona Loudon, lasted from 1992 to 1994.

Name notes for searchers

Craig is his family surname, so there is no stage name. The unusual middle name, Wroughton, is often misspelled in searches. LOC and Britannica both confirm the spelling Daniel Wroughton Craig.