Abattoirs maketh the man

Director Martin Campbell is “one of the world’s most revered action directors, twice rescuing the Bond franchise” writes the Guardian’s John Patterson. Now Campbell has returned to Edge of Darkness, the 1980s TV drama that made his name and starring Mel Gibson. A relentlessly self-effacing man, he is keen, in his plainspoken New Zealander way, not to get “too up-myself”. Yet Campbell is one of the world’s top action movie directors, having twice rebooted the Bond franchise when it needed it most, bringing in first Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye) and then Daniel Craig. Campbell was born in Hastings, in 1940, but looks 20 years younger than his 69 years. “I tried to get a job as a TV cameraman and they basically told me, ‘You’re mad, everyone wants these jobs — and if you go to England, you’re doubly mad.’ But I worked in abattoirs for 10 months to earn my money, then left for London. I didn’t even know what a director did.” Campbell is currently working on The Green Lantern, starring Canadian heart-throb Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.