Martin Campbell

Actor, Producer, Director

Birthdate: Oct 24, 1943

Birthplace: Hastings, New Zealand

A reliable professional capable of solid mainstream action movies, Martin Campbell spent decades in the trenches of sex comedies and genre TV until his breakthrough in the Gary Oldman-Kevin Bacon legal thriller, Criminal Law (1988). This led to another legal thriller, Defenseless (1991), with Barbara Hershey, Sam Shepard, and Mary Beth Hurt. Campbell’s rep as a strong action director was established by the Ray Liotta-starring prison thriller, No Escape (1994), quickly followed by Campbell’s first James Bond movie, GoldenEye (1995), with Pierce Brosnan.

Martin Campbell waited eleven years until he handled another Bond spectacular, this one—Casino Royale (2006), the first to star Daniel Craig—considered by many Bond files as the best in the entire series. In between these assignments, Campbell directed the smash hits The Mask of Zorro (1998) and The Legend of Zorro (2005), both starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones at the height of their sex appeal, as well as the mountain climbing thriller, Vertical Limit (2000), co-starring Bill Paxton, Chris O’Donnell, and Scott Glenn; and the international drama, Beyond Borders (2003) with Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen.

Although he stopped his string of Bond and Zorro movies, Martin Campbell has continued to deliver commercial entertainments, albeit with erratic box-office results: The Mel Gibson-starring noir, Edge of Darkness (2010, a remake of Campbell’s successful BBC-TV series of the same title), and the anticipated though disappointing DC Comics superhero movie, Green Lantern (2011) with Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, and Blake Lively, Tim Robbins, and Taika Waititi.

Campbell’s recent work includes The Foreigner (2017) with Jackie Chan (playing a not-so-chopsocky Vietnamese father), and The Protégé (2021), with the diverse cast of Maggie Q (as an Irma Vep-ish contract killer), Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, and Robert Patrick. Martin Campbell returned in 2022 with Liam Neeson in the thriller, Memory, based on the fine 2003 Belgian drama, The Memory of a Killer, and featuring Monica Bellucci and Guy Pearce.

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Personal Details

Raised in New Zealand, Campbell relocated to London to train in cinematography. He has been married three times; previously to Diana Hardcastle and Valarie Trapp, and since 2006, to the female Mexican-Swiss actor Sol Romero. The couple has three children–Elina, Fabrice, and Tomas Campbell. His height is 5’ 10”.

Awards

Winner, Best Director, BAFTA Awards (1986); Winner, Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing, BAFTA Awards (2007).

1986

BAFTA TV Award

BAFTA Awards

2007

Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film

BAFTA Awards

Filmography

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Upcoming (1)

2025 |
Cleaner
Cleaner
2025
R
Action, Drama, Thriller
Criminal activists hijack a gala, taking 300 hostages. One extremist plans mass murder as a message to the world. An Ex-soldier turned window cleaner now works to rescue the hostages.

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Previous (4)

2022 |
Memory
Memory
2022
R
1h 54m
Action, Crime, Thriller
5.7
An assassin-for-hire finds that he's become a target after he refuses to complete a job for a dangerous criminal organization.
2017 |
The Foreigner
The Foreigner
2017
R
1h 53m
Action, Thriller
7
A humble businessman with a buried past seeks justice when his daughter is killed in an act of terrorism. A cat-and-mouse conflict ensues with a government official, whose past may hold clues to the killers' identities.
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2015 |
No Escape
No Escape
2015
R
1h 43m
Action, Thriller
In their new overseas house, an American family soon finds themselves caught in the middle of a coup, and they frantically look for a safe escape from an environment where foreigners are being immediately executed.
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2006 |
Casino Royale
Casino Royale
2006
PG-13
2h 24m
Action, Adventure, Thriller
8
After earning a licence to kill, secret agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007. Bond must defeat a private banker funding terrorists in a high-stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, in Montenegro.

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Previous (22)

2022 |
Umbra
2021 |
The Protégé
2021 |
The Protege
The Protege
2021
R
1h 49m
Action, Crime, Thriller
6.1
Rescued as a child by the legendary assassin Moody, Anna is the world's most skilled contract killer. However, when Moody is brutally killed, she vows revenge for the man who taught her everything she knows.
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asThe Protege
2021 |
The Asset
The Asset
2021
Action, Crime, Thriller
This pic follows Anna (Maggie Q) and Rembrandt (Keaton) - two of the world's premiere assassins who share a mysterious past from Vietnam. For years, they traversed the globe competing for high profile contracts. But when Anna's mentor Moody (Jackson) is murdered, she and Rembrandt must form an uneasy alliance and return to Vietnam to track down his killer.
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2018 |
Once a Thief II
2018 |
The Treasure of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves
2011 |
Green Lantern
2010 |
Edge of Darkness
2006 |
Casino Royaleas Director
2005 |
The Legend of Zorro
2003 |
Beyond Borders
2002 |
Dirty Angels
2000 |
Vertical Limitas Director
1998 |
The Mask of Zorroas Director(directed by)
1995 |
GoldenEyeas Director
1991 |
Defenseless
1988 |
Criminal Law
1977 |
Black Joy
1976 |
Intimate Games
1975 |
Eskimo Nell
1975 |
Three for All
1973 |
Sex Thief

Some Facts About Martin Campbell

Campbell, Martin Campbell: As helmer of Casino Royale, Campbell became the oldest director of Bond movies.

Two Bonds: Martin Campbell is one of the few filmmakers to direct two different actors in the role of James Bond: Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye, and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

To The Birds: Campbell was attached as director of a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, The Birds (1963), but dropped out after two years.