‘Cleaner’ Director Martin Campbell on Combating ‘Die Hard’ Comparisons, Looking Back at His Bond Legacy and Turning Down ‘The Mask of Zorro’ Three Times

After directing not one but two pivotal entries in the James Bond franchise, “GoldenEye” and “Casino Royale,” Martin Campbell has accomplished more than enough to earn a permanent place in the action movie firmament. But his sturdy, unshowy virtuosity on everything from “The Mask of Zorro” to two versions of “Edge of Darkness” to “Memory” has made him a broader fixture in the industry for more than five decades.

Campbell’s latest film, “Cleaner,” leverages his considerable experience as a purveyor of thrills. In it, Daisy Ridley plays a former soldier-turned-window washer enlisted to defeat a radical eco-terrorist group that takes over an energy company’s corporate headquarters after discovering that her disabled brother is among their hostages. Despite bristling at comparisons of the film to “Die Hard,” Campbell delivers a literal high-wire act of suspense that required Ridley to perform a majority of her own bone-crunching stunts even as he most heavily leaned on her acting muscles to create a desperate, vivid (if foul-mouthed) portrait of heroism under hard circumstances.

Ahead of Friday’s release of “Cleaner,” Campbell spoke to Variety about the unique challenges of the film in the context of his pedigreed career. In addition to discussing the financial and logistical limitations of shooting a story that takes place on the 50^th story of a building — on the outside — the director reflected on several of his earlier hits, including ones he initially turned down three times, and offered his earned wisdom about success and failure in a fickle business.

Not counting your TV work, I think that “Cleaner” is your 20th feature film as a director.

God, is it really? You know more than I do, Todd.

For good or bad, did it feel that way?

No, it doesn’t, you know what I mean? Because of the space between films, you don’t really sort of add them up. And sometimes I think, “Oh shit,” some dreadful film that I did years ago sort of crops up and I think, “Oh God, I’ve completely forgotten about it.”

This film has sort of a “Die Hard” vibe. Did you look at this film as a containment thriller or a way to exercise your talents in a limited space?

Well, no. I mean, I can name you 20 films that take place on a plane, for example, [but] no one will ever equate one with the other. Because “Die Hard” was such a terrific movie, so anybody in a skyscraper — in our case, a cleaner up against eco-terrorists — obviously there’s a similarity. But actually the story is very different, and it was a page turner for me. What was interesting for me apart from the Daisy part was the eco-terrorist thing and the coup within that terrorist organization, which is very unusual. And the relationship between Daisy and her brother was different, so in many ways very different from “Die Hard,” but architecturally, of course, it’s similar.

You mentioned the eco-terrorism in the film. How difficult was it to ensure that you might not inadvertently vilify activism for what’s a really pressing social issue right now?

Obviously eco is a big, big deal at the moment, not least of course in America because we have Trump who’s kicking it all out of touch, basically. [But] what’s interesting is that eco-terrorists are the good guys basically, and in this case you have two factions within them. One’s the guy who doesn’t believe in violence — threats, yes, but absolutely believes that no lives should be lost. And you have someone else who wants to go to the absolute extreme. So that’s great, and it just had that sort of thriller momentum going that once it takes off, it never stops.

The action in this film is really visceral.

Daisy did most of that herself. The lady playing opposite her was actually a stunt lady. You normally have to bring a double in and so forth — so obviously in the more dangerous stuff, yes — but I have to say she went gangbusters at it.

How dependent is the success of those scenes on the actor being willing to participate? Are you a good enough filmmaker that you could still make it look as intense even Daisy had refused?

Obviously use the actor if that’s possible, because you’ll get comments online [that] they could see the double and you could do all this. But also, the acting part of it with the action is great. And the great thing about actors is when they do it, you can just film how you want to film. You don’t have to start compromising the way you shoot it.

I imagine that this film, as handsome as it is, may have cost a little less than some of those big studio films you’ve made.

It certainly did.

What does making films with bigger resources teach you when you come to a project where they’re a little bit more limited?

Well, here’s the thing: There’s obviously visual effects. I mean, you can’t film 700 feet up on the side of a building, or they won’t let you anyway. So how the hell do you shoot this thing on a tight budget? And I must say that we had many, many discussions about the fact that she’s halfway up that building, 50 floors up, for virtually all the time she’s outside the building. How do you do that economically? And like all of these things, when you put your mind to it and you’ve got a good crew and you’ve storyboarded the whole thing, you can actually make it work. For example, for the [window-washing] cradle, we built three levels of windows in terms of the set. So it’s just a matter of working out the best possible solution with these things. You don’t have the resources or the money to build a really big set where you can have that cradle going up and down the way you want it — and by the way, that’s not a bad thing. I mean, you’re forced into techniques that perhaps on a bigger film you would never need to worry about, but the results can be just as good.

This film follows “Dirty Angels,” starring Eva Green, and it follows “The Protégé” with Maggie Q. Is there a reason that stories about female bad asses seem to have inspired your creativity recently?

Not really. In the case of “Dirty Angels,” I thought there was an absolute logic that it should be a team of women, because women are treated like fourth-class citizens in Afghanistan, and of course they have the hijab to put over their face so they’re perfect. If that was a team of male Marines, then they would never have been able to do it. And in this case, with the script, it was always a woman. So choosing projects because women happen to be the protagonists in it, it’s not deliberate at all.

What conversations did you have with Daisy about what you wanted her to bring to the role that you wanted to amplify once she got onscreen?

We talked a lot about the relationship with her brother, naturally, because that essentially is the only relationship she has apart from Taz, which is a very conflicted relationship between them, obviously. Apart from that, Daisy is very versatile actress. So it was just a matter of her physically being able to do what had to be done.

You’ve talked about how you were not right the right director for “Green Lantern.” What lessons have you taken from the films that you’re still proud of today?

Oddly enough, it’s the projects that you do that are sort of off the wall. I did a film for HBO way back in the early ’90s called “Cast a Deadly Spell,” and it’s HP Lovecraft meets Humphrey Bogart, and I said, “I’m absolutely not right for this film. I should not be doing it.” And my wife at the time said, “You bloody will get out and do it.” Well, it turned out pretty well and was very successful. So sometimes it is a good idea to take on something that is interesting, fascinating, and something that you haven’t done before. But I happen to love thrillers. For me, the original “Die Hard” — and I’m not mixing it up with “Cleaner” at the moment — was to me the perfect entertaining thriller. But I was brought up in the ’60s on “The Manchurian Candidate,” the John Frankenheimer film “Seven Days in May,” “The Wild Bunch,” all those great late ’60s movies, which I loved.

When you helmed “GoldenEye,” it was not just a rebirth for the franchise, but an incredible calling card for you to showcase all your filmmaking skills.

The irony of that film is that I got the job because of a film that didn’t make a cent. In Australia, I’d done a film called “No Escape,” and I don’t think there was anyone apart from Ray Liotta that I’d call “names.” And I finished it and it was released and it didn’t do any business. And then I got a call from John Calley, who at the time who was running United Artists, and he said, “How would you like to direct Bond?” And I said, “Well, yeah, of course I would. But why did you think of me?” He said, “I saw ‘No Escape’.” So ironically, it turned out a film that did nothing actually was my calling card to actually getting that job.

The next film you made was “The Mask of Zorro.” Did you feel like that was really you getting to capitalize on the momentum of the success of “GoldenEye?”

No. The irony is I turned down “Zorro” three times. The reason was that Robert Rodriguez was originally going to direct that movie. He backed out because of budget reasons… I think he had a budget of $47 million, and he just said he didn’t have enough. And they asked me three times to do it, and I turned it down three times. I didn’t like the script, even though the story was solid. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Steven Spielberg rang me and made me sound like the second coming, and I fell for it and I agreed to do it. And the night I actually accepted, I sat with my agent in a restaurant and my lawyer with my head in my hands saying, “This is the worst mistake I’ve ever made doing this movie. I should never have said yes.”

Do you feel like that film came together?

Somehow we got other writers and so forth, but it was a movie that [TriStar Pictures’ then president] Calley, who took over from Mark Canton at the time halfway through pre-production, didn’t like the concept at all. He had a shopping list of why he didn’t want to do it because he had inherited it, and because he was my boss on “GoldenEye,” there was sort of radio silence for 10 days, and we got green lit. And I said to him, “Why the hell did you green light this movie?” And he said, “Well, even if it’s a dog, I can get $45 million foreign on this thing.” That was the conversation, and we went ahead and made it.

When time came to make “Casino Royale,” did you feel more confident coming back to the franchise, or was there enough unpredictability with a new Bond actor that it felt like a different kind of tightrope walk?

On “Casino,” we were bolstered by Paul Haggis’ draft of the script. Paul’s a wonderful writer. I think he did it in five weeks or six weeks, so that helped enormously. He really did break the back of it. And also, Barbara Broccoli’s inspired choice: It was her who really pushed Daniel Craig. She was the one who really wanted him, and she was absolutely right. And that combination and taking on a much more gritty, real kind of approach to the thing, I think is what made that film.

After making so many films, is there an alchemy that you can identify where you can make a movie great with a star even if the script’s not great, or if the star is not great, but the script is?

No, I never see it in those terms. The thing is, filmmaking is very hard. But the thing is, particularly in those movies where you have these huge sequences and so forth, you just sort of put your head down and go for it. It was just getting the damn thing through and working as hard as we could to make the best of it. Was it going to be a good movie? God knows. I had no idea at the time. For example, Mads Mikkelsen was terrific, Eva Green couldn’t have been better — I mean, she was absolutely terrific. So certain films fall into place, your cast falls into place. You get lucky. That was an example where everybody fell into line on that movie. But I never know until the end of the movie, is it going to be any good? Also, in that movie, you had three big card playing sections, which I was really worried about, thinking are they going to wear this or are they going to get bored? Well, fortunately with two actors like Daniel and Mads, you’re totally involved with them.

What is the first inkling when you know you’ve made a good movie, that you’ve pulled it off?

Well, what happens is movies are assembled as you go along now obviously, and at the end of it, ironically, I never watch a first cut ever. What I do is I watch reel one, reel two, and I go back into every take so I get it to where I can bear to watch it. A movie’s at its worst when you’ve got the assembly — God, it’s so depressing. And that’s only [the moment] when I think that we’ve got something that is going to be good. Though as we go along, you’ve seen cut sections of it because the editor is editing as you go along anyway, so you get an inkling then as to whether it’s going to be good or not.

Are there films that you’ve made that you feel deserve more appreciation than they’ve received?

I think “Memory” is a perfect case. The critics didn’t like that, and yet it’s identical to the European one… well, the story is identical. I think our ending is better. I think it’s a better made film. But the critics were so down on it, and yet the critics for the European one were terrific. But that’s probably the only one. The bad ones I’ve made I agree are bad. I don’t have any objection to that.

This interview was edited and condensed.