DANIEL Craig has confirmed he will return as the next James Bond – but said he hopes to “go out on a high note” as it will likely be his last.

The actor made the announcement while appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night.

Craig, aged 49, was met with rapturous applause as he replied “yes” when the US presenter asked if he will play the next Bond.

He said he believes the film, which is due out in 2019, will be his final time as the agent.

“I think this is it. I just want to go out on a high note and I can’t wait,” Craig said.

He said he “couldn’t be happier” over the announcement and addressed the time he told an interviewer he would rather “rather slash my wrists” than play the agent again.

“There’s no point in making excuses about it but it was two days after I finished shooting the last movie,” he said.

“I went into an interview and someone said, ‘Would you do another one?’

“Instead of saying something with style and grace, I gave a really stupid answer.”

GAME Of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has said ratings will not be damaged by leaked episodes as well as spoilers released after the HBO hack.

The Jaime Lannister actor also said he believes most true fans will stay away from compromised information.

So far, scripts have been released after a hacker breached HBO’s computer network and, in a separate incident, an episode of the current season was published online before its air date.

“There were always going to be people who want to find out more but I think it’s just a tiny, tiny fraction of the people who love the show,” Coster-Waldau told the Press Association in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

“Why would you want to spoil it for yourself?

“We saw it last week, there was an episode leaked, episode four was leaked, that didn’t hurt the ratings at all.”

Indian police reportedly arrested four former and current employees of Prime Focus Technology, a Mumbai-based company that stores the series for an Indian network, over the leak of episode four of the current season.

Separately, HBO has been under attack from a group of hackers who said they have stolen 1.5TB of data and have been trickling out the stolen information over several weeks.

The leaks have included scripts, internal documents and emails from an executive so far and it is feared more will follow.