BOB HOSKINS hates heights, isn't very keen on water and doesn't like adventure holidays. Yet here he is, in some inaccessible reach of New Zealand, being thrown out of canoes, crossing deep gorges and falling over rocks in the BBC's latest period blockbuster. It's enough to test someone 20 years younger, but the popular 59-year-old British film star insisted he wanted his return to television to look as realistic as possible.

Bob jumped at the chance to appear - alongside Peter Falk and James Fox - in The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle's ripping yarn about a group of British explorers searching for dinosaurs in the Amazon, but he hadn't bargained on his three-month shoot in the wilds of Maori country being quite as tough as it turned out.

"It was terrifying, to be honest, " he recalls.

"There were a lot of things I had to do which I hadn't done before, but I had to do them to make the film look as good as possible.

"I used to be a good swimmer when I was younger, but it's different when you are throwing yourself out of a canoe as you go over a load of rapids. They were going to get a stuntman to do it - but it wouldn't have looked right, so I just went for it. It was very hairy and very cold. But I managed to swim back to shore. Luckily, we only had to do it once and there were frogmen on hand if I'd got into trouble. But it was all pretty uncomfortable."

Bob plays the leader of the expedition, Professor George Challenger - and the swimming ordeal wasn't the only personal challenge that came his way. "I've always hated heights. I get vertigo in Cuban heels, and they got me crossing this gorge with only a rope to hold on to, " he recalls. "It was horrifying.  The drop isn't quite as big as it looks on screen, but it was more than enough for me. That wasn't acting for me. That was real terror.

"Then I hurt my leg when I slipped on some rocks. I just heard this pop, and it felt like someone had kicked me.  It was a bit worrying because it started to turn black at one stage. I was sitting on the plane coming home and I could see this black creeping up my leg. I thought I was going to have to have it chopped off.

"I'd broken some blood vessels and the blood was seeping into my calf and lower leg. I'm not very good at suffering. But luckily it happened towards the end of the shoot and I was able to get it sorted out without any real problems."

Although Bob had to lose his Cockney accent for this latest project, he hasn't lost any of his down-to-earth qualities, even after 30 years in the business. He is witty, self-deprecating and amazed that anyone should still be offering him work, let alone consider him at the top of his profession.

The man who rose to fame on the back of box-office hits Mona Lisa and The Long Good Friday, and such TV dramas as Pennies From Heaven, says he has never planned his route to success. He insists: "I've just gone from job to job. It makes me laugh when people talk about planning a career because I wouldn't know how to. If something turns up and I like the look of it, then I'll go and do it.  I've always worked like that.

"Until Michael Caine came along, you never really had a working-class Cockney hero. He opened the doors for people like me.  Without him I wouldn't be here. When I started out, I wanted to be the best actor possible. Then I realised if you did a bit of telly or film then, regardless of talent, you tended to get the better roles. Things just started to fall into place. To be honest, I'm still waiting for someone to find me out. I'm never going to be a luvvie. It pisses me off a bit that - I'd like to be called one just once.

"But don't plan anything for goodness sake.  Forget that. It's just a wonderful journey. Go where it takes you. Close your eyes, hold your nose and jump in."

Despite his globe-trotting lifestyle, Bob still regards London as home. He has resisted any temptation to move to America.

Christmas will be spent, as every year, with wife Linda and children Jack and Rosa.

"Don't get me wrong, Los Angeles is an extraordinary town and I've got an awful lot of friends there, " he explains. "But I'm a Londoner. I always will be. This is home for me. It's where I feel comfortable.

"If I was to move anywhere, I think it would be to New Zealand - because it's more like England than anywhere I've been.  It's got fantastic landscapes with fantastic, welcoming people."

WITH Hollywood marriages crumbling every month, Bob is proud of the fact that his partnership with Linda has remained strong for more than 20 years. His family has given him a solid base, which Bob considers vital to his continued success and happiness.

"I couldn't have done anything without them," he maintains. "It's a bit of a crazy business out there and you need people around you who can keep your feet on the ground. I can go off to wherever and do my thing, then come home and know I've got the best of both worlds. I know it can't have been easy for them sometimes, when I've been away for longer periods of time. But they know it's my job and it's brought us lots of things we wouldn't have had otherwise.

"Linda would have come over to New Zealand with me, but Rosa was doing her A-levels and her mum didn't want to leave her, which was fair enough.

"Rosa and Jack are both great kids. If they wanted to go into the business, then that would be fine by me. It's given me everything I've ever wanted. I think if Jack had a chance of playing Spiderman, then he'd become an actor. Rosa's quite interested too. But it's early days yet. All I'd warn them about is ambition - or rather, too much of it. This business is a great game. It's a fabulous thing to do and a great way of earning a living. Whether you earn impossible money or even if you're in rep in Skegness, then it's fun. Be happy with that."

His next job sees him playing one of the most unusual roles of his life - that of the muchloved Pope John XXIII - for an Italian TV project, The Good Pope. Adopting an Italian accent, he says: "I got this call saying how wonderful they thought I was and that I'd be perfect for the Pope. I said, 'How do you reckon that, then?' They said I was the perfect shape - round, fat and short. It's a great role, set at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, and my Pope helps sort things out."

Ironically, Bob admits to not believing in God and being brought up an atheist. "I've never been very comfortable with the idea of some man up there looking down on us, or that if we're good we go to the place called Heaven and if we're not then we go to Hell.

I believe that once we die, we die. That's the end of it. I don't mind what you do with me after that. You can stuff me for all I care.

"I remember being brought up with godless views at home, but then I got sent to Sunday school, which I thought was strange.  It was only later I realised I was being sent so my parents could have it off at home!"

Despite his atheist views, Bob does believe there are forces at work which we cannot see or understand, thanks to a supernatural experience several years ago.

"When I was a kid of about 16, I used to work at Covent Garden in the warehouse there, " he recalls.

"I went down into the basement one day and saw this face of a lady in front of me.  I thought it must be a reflection, but the next day I saw it again. I didn't feel frightened, but it was strange.

"Then, when I asked the guv'nor, he said the place used to be a convent garden where the nuns and monks sold their wares - and I'd just seen one of the nuns. He said anyone who saw one would have a charmed life.

"I've definitely had one of those, haven't I?"