He finally gets to play it cool, but will he play James Bond?

To the extent that British actor Daniel Craig is known in this country, it is mostly for tortured roles in films such as “Road to Perdition” and “Sylvia,” in which he played the husband of doomed poet Sylvia Plath. That is likely to change with his role in “Layer Cake,” which finds him playing a nameless, supercool criminal making his way through the London underworld.

“Poet to drug dealer, that’s acting for you,” he said with a laugh during a recent interview.

“Layer Cake,” which came out Friday, marks the directing debut of Matthew Vaughn, best known for his work producing hip crime pictures with director Guy Ritchie. “Layer Cake” takes things in a decidedly more low-key direction, which is partly what brought Craig to the project.

“When I first went to see Matthew,” recalled Craig, 37, “I wouldn’t knock his films with Guy, but let’s just say they’re not really my cup of tea. We talked about things like ‘Get Carter’ and ‘The Ipcress File,’ certain American films of the ‘70s, like ‘The French Connection,’ and some of the Michael Mann movies -- stuff that’s a bit grittier. We shared those common interests.”

Part of what gives “Layer Cake” its additional, well, layers, is a fine, almost fetishistic, attention to consumer detail, as every shopping bag, car seat and clothing iron is just so. In preparation for his role, Craig had suits made from some of the finest tailors on the famed Savile Row.

“It’s a form of control,” Craig said. “My character falsely believes he’s got to feel in control of every situation he gets into. That’s what appealed to me about the part; we watch somebody who appears to be in control fall apart. It’s like a suit of armor, suits make you feel a certain way, and I can get into that very easily, especially if you’ve got a very nicely tailored suit.”

Craig’s performance is a paragon of icy cool, a deft blend of danger and charm that has gained the actor serious attention, including being added to the ever-shifting list of British actors rumored to be under consideration for the iconic role of James Bond.

Craig, perhaps retaining a touch of his character’s delicate indifference, played it all down.

“I didn’t set out to make him cool,” he said. “If I’d set out to make him cool, by definition he would have been uncool. I wanted him to appear in control of a situation, so that he could be in a boatyard in the East End of London doing a deal with hardened criminals and then be in a gentlemen’s club in Westminster, in the middle of town.

“If people think I’m cool in it, that’s great, but ... honestly, I was not consciously thinking about that.”