For the director who had James Bond drive a tank through the streets of St Petersburg and made Sir Anthony Hopkins look convincing as Zorro, the high-altitude action of "Vertical Limit" must have been a breeze. So when Martin Campbell tells you it's the toughest thing he's ever done, you know he's not joking.

"GoldenEye and "The Mask of Zorro" were no walk in the park, but at least they were both on flat land," the New-Zealand-born director explains. "On Vertical Limit we had to go up a mountain every day, and up there you can slip and kill yourself as fast as it happens in the film. I get terrible vertigo, and I can't stand the cold. And as for the helicopters - I think I must have done over 300 hours."

Perhaps that's why Campbell is steering clear of action with his next picture. "I want to do a noir-ish political thriller along the lines of "All the President's Men," he reveals. The twist is it will also feature time travel! David Rayfiel, of "Three Days of the Condor" fame, has been hired to write the script.

Campbell is largely credited with resuscitating the Bond series with "GoldenEye", so what did he think of the two that came afterwards? "I'm disappointed. Bond has become much more of an action man, and he's lost all those moments that make him Bond. So you end up with half a million machine gun bullets when you should have one silencer."

Read an interview with one of the film's stars Robin Tunney