Craig: Reel to real

London, Oct. 13: James Bond actor Daniel Craig has bought a £4 million apartment in a house near Regent’s Park, just a minute’s walk from 007’s fictional headquarters.

The home is in an area well used by spies and close to flats designed by the real-life Goldfinger.

Apparently oblivious to the credit crisis the actor, whose second Bond movie Quantum Of Solace will release at the end of the month, paid nearly £600,000 more for the flat than it sold for a year ago.

Craig, 40, proudly showed his film producer girlfriend Satsuki Mitchell round last week after builders tore out the insides ready for a refit. He appeared delighted with the progress on the two-storey apartment. And he should have no worries about the cost of the project.

His first Bond movie, Casino Royale, made £290 million in ticket sales — the most for a 007 film. Bond film company Eon Productions has signed him up for four more movies in a contract that could earn him £30 million in the next five years.

The new house is conveniently close to Primrose Hill — an area once home to Craig’s celebrity friends including Jude Law and his ex-wife Sadie Frost, and Sienna Miller, who starred in Layer Cake with Craig and had a fling with him.

The location has impeccable Bond credentials. In Ian Fleming’s Bond books, 007’s headquarters was just a short walk away — described as a “tall grey building near Regent’s Park” which housed British Naval Intelligence.

Meanwhile Fleming’s real-life nemesis, architect Erno Goldfinger, left his mark on the area in the form of the flats he designed nearby. Fleming was known to dislike Goldfinger’s modern design style and when he named 007’s adversary Auric Goldfinger the real architect threatened to sue.

Spies, both fictional and real, have used the area as a meeting point. John le Carre set a crucial scene in his 1974 novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on the Regent’s Park canal. And Regent’s Park was the place where the notorious double agents Kim Philby and Donal Maclean were recruited by Russian spy Arnold Deutsch and then groomed by Russian spy chief Theodore Mally at meetings on park benches.

But Craig is keeping his reasons for picking the flat highly confidential. His spokesperson would not comment on his personal life.