Then, with an expansive shrug, a maintenance man loitering nearby joins in: 'Heck, I sure wish he did live here because I’m a massive James Bond fan. But he don’t.'
It is an impressive act, and one can only hope the man in question tips them handsomely for their discretion.
Low key: Bond actor Daniel Craig and his actress wife Rachel Weisz prefer to keep a low profile
Because Daniel Craig very much does live in this low-key building in New York’s East Village — not that anyone would ever pick him out as a Hollywood star.
Step into the grimy street outside and the locals are positively falling over themselves to talk about their famous neighbour.
'Of course that’s his place — we see him going in and out all the time,' drawls the lady in the next-door tattoo parlour.
'I did a double-take the first time I saw him in the supermarket,' adds star-struck Debra Johansen. 'He had a flat cap on and he had his head down. He doesn’t look at anyone.'
Everyone has a Daniel Craig story to tell, with a common theme running through them all: the scruffily dressed man looks nothing like one of the best-paid actors on the planet.
Yet he is. This month it emerged that Craig is the highest-earning James Bond in history, having signed a contract that will earn him a massive £31 million for the next two 007 movies.
Yet compared with brash, attention-seeking celebrities such as Simon Cowell (who loves turning up for X Factor duty at the wheel of his £1 million Bugatti Veyron), the 44-year-old Bond actor leads a very simple life.
His car, for the record, is an Audi A6 saloon. More closely associated with travelling salesmen than secret agents, it fits the bill because it doesn’t attract attention.
License to chill: Daniel Craig's work-a-day wardrobe (right) is a far cry from 007's suave suited look (left)
Fame has never rested comfortably on Craig’s broad shoulders, but being Bond is a full-time job, and even this working-class boy from The Wirral has not been able entirely to avoid its effects. (His most prized possession is a Liverpool football shirt signed by club captain Steven Gerrard.)
Raised in a pub, he used to be famed for his ordinary tastes. To him, a pint of bitter in his local was vastly preferable to vodka martinis in exotic bars.
Even when he mixed with the achingly hip Primrose Hill Set in North London a decade ago, the likes of Kate Moss (an old flame) would poke fun at his cheap clothes and relaxed attitude towards regular bathing.
He was also surprisingly candid about his income, publishing details of his expenditure in great detail via his company accounts.
Those records, from the now dissolved Ella Productions (named after his 19-year-old daughter from his brief first marriage), provide a tantalising glimpse into the life of an enigma.
Until about six years ago, he had made a perfectly decent living, entering the public consciousness in the epic mini-series Our Friends In The North and enjoying no small measure of fame through films such as Road To Perdition and Sylvia.
In 2006, however, Casino Royale changed everything. Suddenly he was the suave 007, and his appearance needed to change accordingly.
00 Smooth: Even when trapped in a disused Underground tunnel, Bond always looks suave
The accounts for that year are revealing, with a claim of £930 for cosmetic dentistry explaining that dazzling Bond smile.
He also claimed £2,751 for ‘professional wardrobe’ and £3,890 for a personal trainer — presumably to help him achieve the now legendary chiselled body which he poured into those blue trunks.
The list lends credence to Daniel’s own assertion: 'I’m not James Bond. It’s someone I play.'
With the roaring success of Casino Royale (the most successful Bond movie of all time prior to Skyfall outstripping it this month) came a change in attitude, however, and since then Craig has become obsessed with maintaining a cloak of mystery around his life.
Indeed, this is a man whose tattoos — carefully covered by make-up for filming — are 'so secret that not even the people close to me know what they mean'.
This outlook has only been exacerbated by marriage to fellow Brit and Hollywood star Rachel Weisz, 42.
They had known each other for years, and became an item after ending their respective unions — Craig with film producer Satsuki Mitchell, to whom he had been engaged since 2007; and Weisz with Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky, the father of her son, Henry, six.
Craig and Weisz married in upstate New York last June amid characteristic secrecy, with only four people present — including Rachel’s son, and Daniel’s daughter,.
Ex appeal: Daniel Craig with ex-fiancee, Satsuki Mitchell (left), and wife Rachel Weisz with her former flame and the father of her son, Henry, Darren Aronofsky (right)
One legacy of the double separation followed by the marriage, however, is evidence that his reputation for being careful with his money is perhaps undeserved — Miss Mitchell is understood to have been allowed to stay in the £1 million apartment which Craig had bought in New York just months before their split.
Not that marriage to Rachel has adversely affected his financial position. She has made a nice pile of her own from blockbusters such as The Mummy and The Constant Gardener.
By 2008, she had enough money to buy a London townhouse, mortgage-free, for a cool £3.25 million.
It is here that the couple have stayed in recent weeks, with sightings of an Aston Martin, Jaguar and a Range Rover Sport parked in the driveway at various times.
This is only a stop-gap, however. Work is understood to be ongoing on a house in Regent’s Park, where they intend to set up a more permanent home.
Speculation persists that Craig is about to spend a small fortune on property in New York, where the couple spend much of their time. Earlier this year, he was outbid on an £8 million penthouse in SoHo.
Back in the UK, the couple have also been spotted house-hunting in Dorset, where they have reportedly briefed estate agents to find them a property with 'a minimum of six acres to ensure complete privacy'.
It may sound like an exorbitantly expensive life, but one of the benefits of being Bond is that luxury frequently comes free of charge.
Daniel admits to being given his Tom Ford suits gratis (they sell in Selfridges with prices starting at £2,000), while he is also presented with watches by luxury brand Omega, which pays top dollar to be James Bond’s official timekeeper.
That's more like it! Daniel Craig in a scene from Skyfall as the suited and booted Bond we all know and love
And despite professing to despise camera-phones that allow fans to snap him ('they are the f***ing bane of my life,' he growls) he has a Blackberry Bold 9700, and has also been spotted carrying an Apple iPad.
Friends who have known him for years say he still yearns for the simplicity of life 'BB' ('before Bond').
He misses being able to go out, get drunk on Guinness and sing bawdy songs, due to the omnipresent threat of those camera-phones.
To this day, when entertaining friends he likes to keep things simple. At one bash he threw in New York, the caterers laid on bacon sandwiches and crisps.
And unlike many fabulously wealthy stars, he has always paid his dues. The most recent accounts for his companies show that he paid well over £1 million in corporation tax over two years.
He also gives time and money to a number of charities, including the Worldwide Orphans Foundation and Epilepsy Action.
Thanks to Bond, he is set for life, and with a growing stake in the 007 project (he has a major say, for example, in choosing directors) he may earn even more when his contract comes up for renewal. But ass with so much else in his life, he won’t be shouting it from the rooftops.
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