CANNES, France - James Bond walks boldly into the ballroom of a luxurious Riviera hotel. He seems cheerful and relaxed -- no tuxedo, just a perfectly tailored suit -- and he shows no sign of nervousness as he sits down at a table with a half-dozen strangers, any of whom could be out to trip him up.

"It's been a great year," smiles Daniel Craig, the 39-year-old actor who carries the mantle of Bond even here, at the Cannes film festival press reception for his new movie, the children's fantasy The Golden Compass.

"We made a great movie last year and lots of people went to see it, and they seemed to like it. ... Honestly, I knew we had a good film. I knew we had a film. I couldn't predict that it was going to do that well at the box office. Nobody could. I think everybody was surprised."

Craig is between Bonds: Casino Royale was a smash hit in 2006, the upcoming Bond 22 is due out next year, and Craig has found time between the six-month shooting schedule and the three-month promotion tours for another would-be franchise that presents dangers even 007 might want to avoid.

The Golden Compass, which opens in Ottawa next Friday, is based on the first book in the series, His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman. The novels take place in a parallel universe where a young girl named Lyra Belacqua (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards) investigates the kidnapping of her friends, who have been taken to the Arctic by creatures called Gobblers. There, an organization called the Magisterium conducts operations to remove their souls.

The Magisterium has been described by Golden Compass writer-director Chris Weitz as "a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots."

It is part of the controversy in His Dark Materials, which has been accused of being anti-Catholic, or at least anti-religious.

The Golden Compass has softened this line -- those who have seen early screenings say the Catholic references have been removed -- but church groups are still upset and some are calling for parents to keep their children away.

Craig, though, addresses the issue with an easy self-possession that would be the envy of a secret service agent.

"It's the debate that the books raise that I find interesting," he says. "People say it's anti-religious, but I don't agree. Quite the opposite, really. It contains ideas of love and charity, and if it raises a debate about organized religion, that can't be a bad thing."

Later, Craig says, "The central theme of the book is the journey of a young girl ... it's a film against oppression, and there's nothing wrong with that picture."

Craig plays Lord Asriel, a Bond-like adventurer who has no sympathy for the Magisterium.

"He's a very subversive human being, a very intelligent lovely human being, but he's got a big subversive streak in him and I think it's very appealing," the actor says.

It's a role that Weitz says is perfect for Craig because he's one of the few actors who have both the charisma and the acting ability to pull it off. Weitz, best known as the man who brought American Pie and About a Boy to the screen, added that he cast Craig before the first Bond movie. "It makes us look very smart now."

The Golden Compass is filled with special effects -- the computer-generated polar bears are the signature image of the movie -- and while Craig says his character doesn't have to conduct conversations with too many imaginary beings, it doesn't bother him to work like that.

"It's an acting job. I've been doing it for a long time: imagining people that aren't there. It's never been particularly difficult for me. I don't know whether that's a good thing to say or not."

Craig began his career at England's National Youth Theatre, where he alternated appearing in Shakespearean dramas with waiting tables. His film career includes some brilliant portraits in small films -- Ted Hughes to Gwyneth Paltrow's Sylvia Plath in Joe Sylvia, the young lover of an older woman in The Mother, the real-life killer Perry Smith in Infamous -- but before Bond he is best remembered as the smooth gangster in Layer Cake, a movie that proved he had the right mixture of urbanity and toughness.

There are three books in The Golden Compass series, which raises the possibility that Craig could find himself involved in another franchise. He greets the speculation with good cheer.

"I love going to work," he says. "As long as I'm not doing too much so that it becomes a bore, what's great about these films is that it will be spaced out. There's going to be time. We'll figure it out." Indeed, just after Cannes, he was heading off to make Flashback of a Fool, a small movie about an older actor looking back on his life. Says Craig, "I'm not very good at not doing things."

He was also busy doing some reshoots for The Golden Compass. The movie is not as physically demanding as his Bond role -- "I walk into a room and walk out of it," is how he puts it -- but he had to go to Switzerland to be filmed sliding down a glacier for one of the movie's chase sequences.

Asked if he was able to use his parkour training from the famous Casino Royale sequence in which he chases a villain through a construction site, Craig is quick to demur.

"I don't have any parkour training. The guy that I'm chasing knew how to do parkour. I kept falling on my face."

Still, the man who got his start playing Shakespeare is heading off to new James Bond stories -- Craig has now signed to do four more -- and perhaps more Golden Compass adventures. It seems like he is in real danger of becoming an action star.

"Do you think?" asks Craig, with only the slightest edge in his voice. "Well, there's worse things."

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