15 December 11

Where I've Been

Daniel Craig

“WHEN I TRAVEL I ALWAYS TAKE A PILE of books, because I never know what I want to read – which is kind of bad for travelling because they’re so heavy. I’ve got Bose [noise- reducing] headphones. They are an old pair and they are literally taped up, but they are a great investment. I kind of got my money back on those straight away. You do one flight with those, and you can switch yourself off.

“Just being in Sweden is one of the biggest, best things. Filming in Sweden, working with Swedish people and eating in Swedish restaurants, just soaking up and pretending to be Swedish. I’m from the UK and there are traditions that we kind of share: it gets dark in the winter and we like the darker side of life. We like good drink. We enjoy discussing our depression! There’s also a very strong storytelling tradition. Stieg Larsson’s books deal with this dark side of life.

“In Stockholm the food’s good and the nightlife’s good – especially on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. It keeps you up all night until 3 o’clock in the morning. It’s banging. The Venice of the north! It’s beautiful. I highly recommend people to go there and visit in their millions.

“I loved the archipelago where we were filming [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo], and a place called Katrineholm. It’s just beautiful, stunning countryside. I saw a tiny piece of it – it’s huge. There’s about four Swedes who live there, as far as I could make out. Four Swedes and about 20 million square miles up there. I think that was the ratio. It’s an amazing place.

“My character in the film, Mikael Blomkvist, is weak. He’s weak as a man; he’s weak as a human being. But he admits he is and he’s not kidding anybody. He’s not pretending to be anything that he’s not. In that sense, he is strong, he’s honest about that. He’s straightforward. He doesn’t lie. I did get told in Sweden that’s the way you chat people up, but I’ve never tried it out. ‘Do you want to do this, or what?’”

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO IS IN CINEMAS FROM 21 DECEMBER.