While James Bond himself may be as adept at playing poker as he is at just about everything else, Martin Campbell wasn’t as confident that he could pull off the big poker scene. “There was a lot of [card] playing in it,” he said. “It was the thing I sweated on more than anything else.”
Still, the three rounds of Texas Hold’em that encompass the film’s central conflict came across remarkably well. The scenes are easily among the best and most memorable moments in “Casino Royale” — a factor that proves Campbell needn’t have sweated it so much after all.
As for what the card game means to 007 and the fate of the world, Campbell had put a lot of thought into this as well. “This is sort of Bond before he becomes Bond, thinking with his heart instead of his head,” he explained. “From a dramatic point of view, each of the card games has a good climax. The point was you would never play it as one long, single game,” he went on. “I think it would have tested the audience’s patience.”
Considering the fact that “Casino Royale” turned out to be the unbridled success that reinvigorated the franchise after the unbelievable absurdity of the previous film, “Die Another Day,” few would argue with how Campbell ultimately constructed the film’s centerpiece. All the same, that $500,000 tip is an especially nice touch.
