Sam Mendes, who won the Best Director Oscar for 1999's American Beauty, is the first to acknowledge that a megabudget action thriller like Skyfall (starring Daniel Craig, pictured, as James Bond) might seem far outside the wheelhouse of an auteur like himself known for lauded but comparatively small-scale dramas.
See two EW exclusive stills -- one of Javier Bardem with Daniel Craig and one of new Bond Girl Berenice Marlohe -- and what director Sam Mendes told us about the upcoming James Bond film