Craig sheds Bond image for WWII drama

British actor Daniel Craig has taken a break from playing James Bond, with the Second World War drama Defiance.

The film is based on the true story of Jewish brothers who fled the Nazis and formed a partisan group.

Craig has said he wants to avoid being typecast as an action hero. Before his outing as James Bond in Casino Royale, the 40-year-old was seen in the TV drama Our Friends of the North and the gangster movie Layer Cake.

His latest on-screen outing is as Tuvia, the eldest of the Bielski brothers who hid from the Nazis in a Belarusian forest, where they ran a partisan resistance movement that protected hundreds of Jews from Nazi persecution.

“One of the reasons I think the story is important is because it belongs to recent history. A lot of the way we look at and live in the world is shaped by that history,'' Craig said.

“Stories such as this need to be told because these are from a time not too long ago,'' added the star.

US actor Liev Schreiber, who plays another Bielski brother, said the film and the true story behind it showed how protecting one another was a basic human instinct.

“At the heart of this story is the notion that we are, as a race, instinctively protective of each other. And it is important to remember that we are a communal species,'' he said.

Director Edward Zwick, who has also made The Last Samurai and Blood Diamond, said people may draw parallels between events of the 1940s and present conflicts.

“Resistance by a people against an overwhelming force is quite contemporary.''