If you thought being appointed heir to one of the most beloved and fiercely guarded franchises in cinematic history somehow rendered you immune from mean-spirited internet taunts and grumblings regarding your fitness for the role—say, that you didn't know how to play poker, use a firearm, that you had no eyebrows, or turned beet red in the sun, that you couldn't drive stick and looked like a Village Person, or even lost your teeth in a choreographed fight—well, you'd be wrong. Even James Bond has feelings:

"If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me which, sadly, I have done it would drive me insane," [Daniel Craig, the new James Bond,] says in an interview in Entertainment Weekly magazine, on newsstands Friday.

"They hate me. They don't think I'm right for the role. It's as simple as that. They're passionate about it, which I understand, but I do wish they'd reserve judgment."

It can't be easy for an actor to step on set and instantly muster the cool-tempered bravado required for a role of this nature, especially just moments after Googling the words "'Daniel Craig' + 'pansy'" in his trailer and scrolling through endless pages of results. It's a testament to the considerable mobilizing powers the internet now affords passionate movie fans, who not so long ago were forced to run off their I Hate Timothy Dalton Fan Club newsletters in a dark, unmarked basement off a stolen mimeograph machine.

• Daniel Craig Takes Bond in New Direction [ABCNews.com/AP]