He may play suave James Bond, but in his new film, “Defiance,” Daniel Craig is tackling more serious topics than martinis and espionage with sexy women (watch an exclusive clip from “Defiance” below).

The film revolves around a group of Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Poland who join forces with Russian resistance fighters, and it required the British actor to research that particular time in history.

“I think that we discussed the story as much as possible,” he told MTV News in an exclusive interview (read the full Daniel Craig interview here). “Apart from reading the books, working with it, and getting research and looking at the time [and] at what happened, there’s tons of info … to soak up.”

The film also gave Craig the opportunity to film in the great outdoors for 12 hours a day — braving, alternately, brutal mosquitoes and brutal cold — which Craig admitted wasn’t really all that, well, great. “We just got used to [being outside], eventually. Going through the swamp wasn’t pleasant,” he said. “They told us it was clean, but who knows?”

Can you see James Bond as a Nazi-fighting rebel, or do you prefer Craig stay firmly in the present day?