''I don't know how that feels. What I do onscreen is a total invention, a totally made-up thing. It's as far from me as anything is possible to be. That's the acting challenge: that I have to pretend to be this super spy. When, you know, I'm a kid from Liverpool.''

Skyfall is Daniel Craig's third outing as 007. It is also his best, which cements his standing as the best Bond since Sean Connery defined the role in the 1960s. Together with director Sam Mendes, the notable English theatre director - whose last film before Skyfall was the witty little indie comedy Away We Go, also about as far from Bond as it's possible for anything to be - Craig pushed for more lightness this time around than he had been able to play in Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace, with a few more of the flip ripostes and bad puns that used to be Bond's hallmarks. Mendes has also brought back a version of Q, the ''quartermaster'' whose predecessors provided generations of Bonds with fun spying gadgets.

At the same time, however, Skyfall gives Bond a tragic backstory. He is also more emotionally expressive than he has been in any of the previous 22 official James Bond films, possibly more than in all the previous films put together.

Craig's Bond already has all of Craig's own intensity anyway, which means that no matter what he's doing - even when he's sparring with the geeky new Q (Ben Whishaw) - there is a melancholy about him that no other Bond had.

You just know he goes back to his sun-lounger in the Bahamas and broods. ''I don't analyse the differences between him and Pierce [Brosnan] or him and Sean,'' says Mendes, a longstanding friend of Craig's. ''I think those other Bonds were products of their time and were asked to do different things. Pierce could have played it differently. So could Roger Moore.

''For me, Daniel is exciting because there is a friction between who he is and who Bond is. Two plus two equals five, in a way. It's a bit of magic.'' One of the emotions Bond gets to experience this time round is bitterness; he senses that spies are getting a little old in this high-tech world. So is Bond; Craig is now 44. ''Sucks, doesn't it?'' Craig says bluntly. ''But what are you going to do? You can't stop it … Bond's hurt very badly in this movie and it's less about the ageing than it is about the clash of worlds. It's not getting political, but governments are far happier sending in spy satellites and drones than putting people in the field. Their excuse is that it's less dangerous, although I think it's probably an economic reason as well.

''Bond's part of the old school, that you've got to go and look people in the eye. He's like me in that respect, I suppose.''

Craig's old-school attitude is one reason he never responded to the outpouring of fury when he was announced as the next 007; he doesn't do social media. ''I don't blog, I don't go on Twitter and I'm not on Facebook,'' he growls. ''And I never f---ing will be. It's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather go and see my friends than chat to them and tell them I had a nice shit this morning. That's just not my way.''

Nor is it his way to smile for the paparazzi, which has earned him a reputation as permanently angry.

''I challenge anybody to f---ing smile,'' he argued recently. ''I'm just not that person. I'm never going to arrive at an airport after a 12-hour flight and go, 'Oh, hi everyone, it's so great to see you!' I can't do it.''

He now lives in New York with Rachel Weisz, whom he married in March last year. Nothing could prepare you for blockbuster celebrity, he says - ''it's weirder and more intense than you ever imagined'' - but he does meet friends in public places. ''People have got more important things to worry about in New York than James Bond being in the bar.''

Still, he is the face you now see on every billboard; you wonder how often people sidle up to ask if his drink is shaken or stirred. Not that he would give them much opportunity, of course. Kids from Liverpool drink beer.

Skyfall opens in cinemas on November 22.