For a seasoned actor, Mathieu Amalric does a pretty good impression of an excitable child.

"It's exciting, it's like a game no? It's a big toy, I just love it!" he says, sitting in a director's chair behind a huge hotel set on the 007 sound stage at Pinewood Studios.

Just moments before, he was on stage and running full pelt towards a camera as a massive explosion shattered a glass wall, sending shards flying towards him.

The Frenchman plays Dominic Greene, the latest baddie in the new Bond film Quantum of Solace, and running from fireballs has become just another day at the office.

Quantum of Solace, the first direct Bond sequel, picks up the action just 20 minutes after its box-office busting predecessor Casino Royale ended, as James goes on the rampage to avenge the death of his beloved Vesper and find out why she betrayed him. Casino Royale put paid to any critics of Daniel Craig's casting as Bond, but the opening action sequence, a daring free-running chase through a massive building site, looked hard to beat.

"This has a lot more action than the last one," says stunt coordinator Gary Powell when we meet off-set. "Obviously Casino Royale did very well, so we want to match that and hopefully better it, so that's a challenge for everyone to make something that stands on its own as Casino Royale did."

Quantum, co-written by Paul Haggis, sees 007 jet off around the world in pursuit of ruthless businessman Dominic Greene, who is trying to strike a deal with Bolivian General Medrano to give him control of his country in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of land. Filming took place in Panama – which doubles for Bolivia and Haiti – Mexico and Chile (both Bolivia), Italy and Austria.

"It is hard to find Bond locations because the bar has risen and the world is becoming smaller," admits director Marc Forster.

But he seems to have succeeded – the opening sequence has Bond in a high speed car chase (the Aston Martin of course), around a cliff-edge road, before chasing a traitor across the rooftops of Siena, while horses thunder through the streets during the annual Palio race.

Fast forward to Haiti where Bond rescues the beautiful Camille (Olga Kurylenko) from the general in a boat chase, then Bolivia, where Bond kidnaps Camille before a dramatic aeroplane chase.

"The boat chase in Panama was challenging because you're on water and it can change any minute," says Gary Powell.

"But we're keeping it real to what the chase is, so engines blow up, but it's a natural explosion, not like a big nuclear one. By the end of Casino Royale everyone knew each other, so when we came to this one, we were much further up the ladder.

"On this one, Daniel's more confident with what he can do. He did 95 per cent of the whole rooftop sequence in Siena, he's literally been doing 18ft jumps from one building to another, running down tiles, then hitting a wall."

Back at Pinewood, one of Daniel's stunt doubles is dressed in a tuxedo and balancing on a replica of a Sienese rooftop, filming close-up shots for the opening sequence.

As we watch, he runs down the roof, tiles sliding, and is hauled up on a wire before he hits the ground.

Filming at Pinewood took place over a six-month shoot on 14 different interior sets, the biggest of which is the hotel Perla De Las Dunas, which the corrupt Bolivian general chooses for the exchange with Dominic Greene. In real life the hotel is actually an observatory in the Chilean desert, where exterior shots have already been filmed. But the crew weren't allowed to film any explosions, because the atmosphere is so dry that any dust would have clouded the sky and damaged the multi-million pound telescopes.

There's just two weeks left of filming and everything is gearing up to Bond's big showdown with Greene.

While Daniel is working away on a closed set – at his instruction because it helps him to concentrate – Mathieu allows us to
watch his explosion scene. On the monitor we see Mathieu being shown his mark in the hotel lobby. Special effects supervisor
and Bond veteran Chris Corbould tells Mathieu where the fireball will go and how the glass to his left should shatter as he runs past it. Then Gary Powell steps in to tell Mathieu how to move with his arms covering his face.

After a couple of rehearsal runs, an expectant silence descends on the backlot.

The director shouts "action" and there's a huge explosion, a flash of light and debris flying everywhere as Mathieu runs straight at the camera.

Moments later, he comes backstage claiming: "I didn't put my arms down, so you don't see me!"

Then there's a noise of fire extinguishers and men with brooms on set start clearing up the mess.

Relaxed and unscathed after his stunt, Mathieu, 42, opens up about his character.

"Since Casino Royale they're trying something more realistic, even if they keep the action sequences of before, it's James Bond, but there's something about his character that is more deep," he says in his thick French accent.

"After Casino Royale, Bond is almost a broken heart,
he wants to know why this girl Vesper committed suicide in front of his eyes. Why did she betray him? And now it's about the good and the bad inside himself, is he an assassin or is he a secret agent? What we try to work on is more realistic and to say what would be a villain today?"

Greene is no ordinary Bond villain, but a mysterious and complex man, Amalric says.

"He's a charming guy, he works in ecology and has this philanthropic company called Green Planet. He wants to plant trees and give land to the poor.

"I found it interesting that today you don't know who has the power, you don't know where the power is really, you don't know what happened with sub-prime, you don't know why the rice price goes up, you don't know why people are starving.

"People are making money with this, it's obvious, but you don't know exactly who they are, they are like wallpaper and that's what I tried to work on. But it's risky, because I only have my face. I don't have a scar, I have nothing and you have to
try to be really disgusting, really scary."

While previous Bond villains have had obvious physical traits, like Jaws' iron teeth, Dr No's metal hands and Le Chiffre's bleeding eye, Mathieu was given nothing to work with.

"I wanted to do something, shave my hair, have one ear off, or have a white rabbit, but Marc said 'your eyes are enough'."

Mathieu, who is now quietly puffing on a cigarette, continues: "You don't know who the bad guy is anymore, because they're all the same. And that will be a big problem for Bond because he doesn't know who the villain is, so it's not like usual where they spend time together and almost respect each other."

At this point, a firefighter comes up to Mathieu and asks him to extinguish his cigarette. It turns out we're sitting just metres away from a sign that reads: "No smoking, no mobiles".

Mathieu apologises, but waves the man away like it's a game. Perhaps it's hard to take rules seriously when you're preparing for another fight with 007.