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Daniel Craig is back as James Bond in the latest 007 instalment SPECTRE.

The highly anticipated movie is out on Monday October 26, and while fans await the first showings, Alison Jones catches up with the action star to get all of the details on his knee injury, co-producing SPECTRE, and setting the record straight on whether he will be back as Bond.

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You have had some glowing reviews for Spectre, does it make all the physical pain and stress of the film worth it?

I forget all about that very quickly.

It is a massive collaborative process and it is nice to be here when the whole team is here and you can look at each other and go ‘well done’.

The rest of it is just hard work, but the best things are.

Was this film extra hard because you had to take time out for an operation on your knee?

Frankly it worked out quite well because we got two weeks off in the middle.

I had to go off and get a little bit of surgery but it allowed Sam (Mendes, directing his second Bond after Skyfall) to get into the editing room and look at the movie, which he would never normally get to see until right at the end.

So I like to think it was deliberate on my part, just to give everybody a break.

Do we see the stunt that caused it in Spectre?

It is not in the film, sadly. I wish it was but I had to stop half way through, because if I did my knee in I was like ‘woah’.

But the scene was the one on the train with Dave (Bautista, the mixed martial artist/wrestler turned actor who plays the brutal Mr Hinx)

You are a co-producer on this film. What did that mean to you?

It was one of the proudest moments of my career, quite simply.

As a co-producer are you more invested in the box office stats and what the reviews are like when they come in?

I am not in control of that. I have been as involved as I possibly could on every single movie I have made and it was just very generous of the producers to say ‘we want you as part of this team’.

When it comes up on the credits I get a huge kick out if it.

Would you like to see a credit that says ‘directed by Daniel Craig’?

Oh God no, I couldn’t do that. That is the worst job, I mean you never get any sleep. And I need to sleep.

So no ambitions to direct a Bond?

No. I don’t think so. I could not follow Sam Mendes, are you joking me?

You were heavily involved in the writing of Quantum of Solace. Does it feel good to have that film acknowledged in Spectre?

We had a real problem on Quantum, we had a writer’s strike.

I didn’t want to be involved in writing Quantum, I am not a writer. I’ve sometimes got a few good ideas but putting it on paper is a whole different ball game.

No one is a bigger fan of writers than I am.

Is it ever a hindrance knowing you have to abide by the tropes of the Bond franchise or is that part of the fun?

You have to make it fun. In a way it is your Bible.

We are not making another movie, we are making a Bond movie and therefore it has to stay within certain lines.

But then you try and free fall, mess around with the convention.

Were there any sacred cows that you wouldn’t touch? You wouldn’t throw a hat on a hat stand, like Sean Connery did, for instance?

We don’t wear hats anymore, sadly. I would love to walk into the office and throw it in.

We did discuss it at one point because we have now gone back to M having an office and it is there and you think ‘God, I would love to do it’. But there are things that don’t work anymore.

But that is part of the fun of it. Thinking what can we do and how can we make it of this moment.

How far has this movie pushed you physically when it comes to action sequences? You used to have a fear of heights but you are walking across ledges as nimble as a mountain goat.

I love that, mountain goat. Looks like a mountain goat, maybe.

Look it is what I started doing (in Casino Royale). I can’t not do it.

I got injured half way through and it slowed me down a bit but it didn’t actually stop me and that was all that mattered to me.

There is a terrifying thought that filming is going to have to shut down while I go off and have surgery and every body has to wait around. It would have been just awful.

So I had to protect myself a bit more. But it is movie making. You fake it as best you can.

At the end of an eight month Bond shoot, what is the first thing you do?

I used to go and get drunk, for about a month. I don’t do that anymore.

I don’t need to. I just want to get home.

I’ve been away from home for eight months. That is the biggest strain on doing a film like this, that everybody is away from their families, and like everybody else, I just want to go home and spend some time with mine.

Did you concoct a back story with Ralph Fiennes as M? Like you had with Judi Dench?

Ralph is one of the best actors we have. He’d do that with Sam.

He’d tell me to f*** off if I got involved with that, quite frankly.

What would make you walk away from Bond?

I don’t know really, in spite of what has been written about it (a comment he made to a British magazine after he'd filmed Spectre, that he'd rather slash his wrists than play Bond again, made juicy headline news).

I always say I have the right to change my mind anytime I want to.

Sometimes I say things, like I did when I was asked two days after I finished shooting for eight months ‘would I do another one?’ and I said what was on my mind. That is the way I have always spoken.

But I reserve the right to change my mind.