SPEAR-CLUTCHING bodypainted Amazonian Indians in faux dinosaur- skin loin cloths and Village People feather head dresses, gibber in bastard Portuguese. The lost race of missing-link apemen wait in the surrounding redwood trees, hidden from view by the hollow polystyrene rock walls. Explorers machete a path through the undergrowth in an imperial manner. The occasional allosaurus head or iguanodon foot lies out of sight and unregarded.

"I've a feeling the normal rules don't apply here," khaki clad Professor Challenger aka Bob Hoskins says, ominously.

Well, quite.

Welcome to The Lost World. The BBC production has just finished shooting Arthur Conan Doyle's land-outside-of-time tale in New Zealand in a $25 million mixture of period drama, Indians, apemen and animatronic dinosaurs.

The story so far . . . Professor Challenger is leading an expedition into the uncharted Amazonian jungle (the West Coast) in search of the last home of prehistoric creatures, the plateau--home as well, it turns out, of the lost tribe of Indians (who live on Canterbury's Flock Hill) and the gang (the shrewdness? the troop?) of apemen (Rotorua).

Most of the apemen are suffering today in the unseasonably hot April sunshine.

"But it's quite nice for me," alpha monkey Malcolm Shields says, "because I've come over from Scotland."

As it's lunchtime Shields has the head and legs of an ape but the upper body of a man. The muscle suit he wears under his costume is tied around his waist. It takes more than two hours to get into the full "incredibly hot" 12-piece suit (which includes prosthetic hands and feet, red contact lenses and dentures).

"We lose a massive amount of fluid. Last night when I finished I could take hold of this," he says through his monkey dentures, grabbing the foam muscle suit with his (opposable) thumbs, "and wring water out and that was just sweat. I have to empty out my shoes at the end of the day".

Apemen, Indians, dinosaurs--Lost World is all Boy's Own family fun. (Actually the original story was boys only as well; an orphaned daughter of missionaries has been written into the TV series 'for romance'). The story follows the Famous Five type gang of Kerr, Challenger, cub reporter Edward Malone (Matthew Rhys), 'notorious big game hunter-womaniser' Lord Roxton (Tom Ward) and cynical palaeontologist Professor Summerlee (James Fox), as they face dangers, peril and a few ripping adventures finding the lost world.

Which is funny, because it's quite easy to find.

The Rotorua set is barely a walk from the hire car and Japanese tour parties manage to fall upon it every hour.

"This is a public place so people do come by," British based producer Chris Hall says.

"The Japanese get quite excited if we have the dinosaurs out. They stop and take photos of them."

Actually the dinosaurs are surprisingly unintimidating, lying on the forest floor, dismembered.

"You are never going to see a whole dinosaur here," Hall says.

The technical crew, many of whom worked on the hugely acclaimed Walking With Dinosaurs series, film dinosaur parts in isolation, feet stomping on to the forest floor, a gaping jaw coming in for the kill. The rest of the dinosaur is filled in in post production.

In the dinosaur chase sequences, a crew member scoots along on a dirt bike with a yellow tennis ball on a stick (to provide a reference point later for light, camera angle and height). The actors must 'react' as if the tennis ball was liable to rip off their arm in a haze of slime and blood.

"Well, you've gotta use your imagination," Hoskins says in thick London vernacular, sounding exactly like Minder's Arthur Daley.

In fact in person Hoskins emanates a lot more menace than the dismembered dinosaurs.

Maybe it's because he's played so many hard men before: in The Long Good Friday, in TwentyFourSeven, in Oliver Stone's Nixon, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club and in Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (for which he received an Oscar nomination).

He does comedy too though. He's still probably best known for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or for kissing Cher in Mermaids.

In fact since he stumbled into show business he's done every sort of film, stage and television role.

"I didn't want to be an actor," he admits. "It just 'appened to me by accident. I didn't want to be anyfing really. I just wanted to 'ave a good time."

Hoskins got his first role accidentally at 25 ("You must know this story," he says when I ask). He was waiting in the pub for a mate who was auditioning "and this chap came down and said 'you're next'".

"I read the part and was given the lead in this play and an agent came along and said 'you've gotta take this up professionally' so I said 'awright, give me a job and I will'. And he did."

Before that he'd done "everyfing", he says.

"Bumming around. Winda cleaning, accountancy, commercial art. I'd been a navvie. I'd dun two weeks in the Norwegian navy."

Surely, I ask, for the last one you would have to be Norwegian? "Nah, nah," Hoskins scoffs at my naivety. "You're joking. The Vikings gave up years ago and settled down. There're 'ardly any Norwegians in the Norwegian merchant navy. You just go along and sign up. But what 'appened to me is I got to Amsterdam and I met this stripper called Malou. I was only 17 so y'know, I jumped ship. You can't miss out on education like that."

As an actor his career approach has been similarly piecemeal. He's played bad guys, good guys, heroes, villains. Even a few 1.67m (5 ft 6) sex symbols.

"I don't look for a particular thing," he says.

"If I like the script I do it. A good script is a good script. And if I haven't dun it before.  If I've only just dun it, it's repeating itself and it's getting boring."

Hoskins reflects a moment.

"I must admit though, I did like the script, but I 'ave been coaxed on to a film because I was told there were excellent caterers."

Was that what attracted him to The Lost World?

"No, no," Hoskins exhorts. "But I must say these caterers 'ere are brilliant. They are the best caterers I 'ave ever known. Wonderful," he says, patting his stomach, his bearded face transformed with the remembered glory of meals past. "Very attentive, incredible. Give them a plug, there're the business. Now what was the question?"

Who can remember? It was something about how Hoskins chooses his roles. How did he choose this one for example.

"I read the book when I was a kid," he says.

"I think I liked it but I couldn't remember much of it. I liked the script, I thought the script was good. I wanted to come to New Zealand."

But it wasn't The Lost World's breathless adventuring tone, all native bearers and pukka sahibs, that attracted him, he says.

"I find adventure films quite dull actually. Most action movies, most adventure films are very boring because action to shoot is a long, drawn out, repetitive process. I'd much prefer to do a proper drama. Sitting in an armchair, talking to people, smoking a pipe."

Instead as Professor Challenger, Hoskins is fighting off apemen, firing guns, climbing mountains, shooting down rivers on rafts.

"I'm too old for all this lark," 58-year-old Hoskins says. "But I never manage to get out of it. James does (Passage to India's James Fox). I don't know 'ow. I've gotta learn 'ow from James. I'm getting too old for all this bashing people up."

He doesn't even enjoy adventure films to watch--or any films for that matter.

"I make them all day, d'ya want me to spend my spare time watching them as well? Nah. Nah. I never go near the cinema. Me missus complains to me," Hoskins' voice ascends to a squawk, "'You never take me to the pictures', and every now and again she drags me out but I'm not a big film fan."

Instead he spends his time at home cooking, reading and listening to music.

"I spend my time just 'anging out really. I'm very lazy. I'm 'appy to do nothing."

Normally his wife Linda joins him on film sets. His two youngest children 18-year-old Rosa and 16-year-old Jack come out too if it's the school holidays (he's got two other children from his first marriage). They've all stayed home this time because Rosa is doing her A levels, he says. He misses them.

"I love the travel. I love getting about and doing the business but, this is my one problem, I get very, very 'omesick, incredibly 'omesick. For me family, for London, for me 'ouse. Mainly for me family."

Hoskins has been sitting in the unseasonable Rotorua sunshine for a while now, a hard man at ease. All this talk of food and family has mellowed him.

"I've always been pretty artistic, y'know," he says confidingly. "Written and painted and stuff like that but y'know, that's lonely. This is a collective art form, this is.

"As soon as I started acting I knew this was what I wanted to do. As soon as I got on stage I felt it was the most peaceful place on earth. I felt at 'ome," he says, his homesickness gone. "I loved it."