Daniel Craig
Long before this blond blue-eyed bad boy suited up to play James Bond, he studied at the Guildhall School of music & Drama, toiled on the London stage and booked a few small TV and film parts in his homeland. His first widespread recognition would come in 2001 when he played Alex West to Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft. Bored by being a beefcake in a blockbuster, he concentrated on indie films and smaller, more memorable parts in films like Road To Perdition, Sylvia and Munich. It was his powerhouse performance as a slick well-suited drug dealer in Layer Cake that first caught the attention of Bond's keepers and it was the retiring 007 Pierce Brosnan who convinced him to give big-budget action another chance. Despite initial outrage at a golden-haired superspy, his first outing 2006's Casino Royale became the highest-grossing installment in the franchise until his second, Quantum of Solace, debuted and set a new bar. Not to be outdone, his third, Skyfall, became the highest-grossing movie in U.K. history within a few weeks of its release. He still finds time to make plenty of non-Bond projects including Munich, Cowboys and Aliens and Defiance. He even won the coveted role of Mikael Blomkvist in the American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its ensuing sequels, based on the global bestsellers by Steig Larsson. Esquire's best-dressed man also remembered to have a personal life. Craig, who has a daughter with ex-wife Fiona Loudon, dated Sienna Miller and Kate Moss before secretly marrying Rachel Weisz in 2011.
