The actor has reprised his role as the superspy for a fourth time, marking his second 007 collaboration with Mendes after 2012's Skyfall, and he admits the pair clashed numerous times on-set over the course of the shoot.

He tells Britain's Empire magazine, "I felt the need to push Sam probably harder than I should (when working on Skyfall), and he kicked back and pushed me and we've done the same on this (Spectre). We just push each other. We blew up at each other a couple of times."

Mendes also concedes he argued with Craig on Spectre, but blamed the bust-ups on the difficult nature of the shoot.

He adds, "It always felt like it (the arguments) led to something better, and that we needed to let off steam. You get cranky. God knows, there's been difficult s**t on this movie. Every single person has either been injured or ill. People have been off who've never been off in their lives before."

Craig suffered a knee injury while shooting the movie earlier this year (15) and had to take time off to undergo surgery.