Former Stig Ben Collins has revealed James Bond star Daniel Craig put him in his place after an awkward acting cameo on the Quantum of Solace set.
The racing driver and stuntman from Bristol was taken out of his comfort zone when he was asked to walk around a car after shooting a scene in the 007 film in Italy. Speaking on Fuelling Around podcast, he said: “In Siena we had to swoop into Bond’s lair but there was half-an-inch into this tunnel for the wing mirrors,” the ex-Top Gear star told motoring podcast Fuelling Around.
“I had to drive round in one clean movement and get it in there. I jumped in to do that bit and he (Daniel) was watching that, probably thinking: ‘I hope he crashes it’. If I was him, I’d have been thinking the same thing.
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"This was when Mr White had been basically trapped in the boot of the car the whole time through a massive carnage car chase around Garda and (Bond) kicks him out.
“They wanted me to line up and do a bit of a walk around the car, which I did like a complete chump because I’m not a good actor and I’m not as cool as Bond. And Daniel said: ‘Just sit back down, I’ll do this.’
"He did it perfectly, adjusted the suit, the walk, the pace, it was measured - everything was just really, really cool. I thought: ‘That’s why you do that job and I just drive the car occasionally. This is right."
The stuntman told the podcast that Daniel has a 'cracking sense of humour'. Collins spoke about working on Skyfall and his other career exploits - including his decision to unmask himself in 2010 after seven years as the Stig on the BBC show - during the 45-minute episode.
He also admitted to an embarrassing blunder on the set of a Star Wars film after avoiding the temptation to test gadgets while working on the spy-series.
“I was in one of the original DB5s on Skyfall and I noticed that the gear level had a flip-top thing on it. So I flipped it over and there was a red button and I was like ‘don’t press it’,” added Collins on the award-winning podcast.
“I was talking to Ben Cook who was the stunt double for Daniel in that film and did all the fight stuff. He said: ‘Ah, yeah, did you push it?’ and I said ‘no’. He said ‘I did, and nothing happened’.
“A friend gave me a day on set for Rogue One, because I’m a huge Star Wars fan, as a storm trooper. My opposite number knew how excited I was and said ‘go on, give the blaster a go’. I didn’t take advantage of the button on Bond so I thought ‘let’s at least pull the trigger on this thing’.
"And it went off. On set, on the death star, this thing started banging and lights went off and I was like ‘oh my God’. He thought it wasn’t a working one and said ‘some of them work, sorry about that’. I felt like a right plumb.”
Fuelling Around is a podcast co-hosted by radio presenter, event host and broadcaster Dave Vitty and British Touring Car Championship legend and TV personality Jason Plato. You can listen to the Podcast, powered by Adrian Flux, on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and AudioBoom.
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