by Paul Fischer

When Oded Fehr walks into a room, it is hard to believe that he is the same man who, as Ardeth Bay in The Mummy Returns, is draped in black, with his long, flowing hair defining his proud, Egyptian character. Indeed, Fehr makes a point of reminding one who he is. "I'm the guy with the long hair and the dress", he says laughingly. His hair is much shorter and the thick black beard we see on screen has been delicately trimmed. Profusely stirring a delicious-looking Iced Cappuccino ["Hear, let me stir it loudly so you can hear the effect when you play back your tape"], it is clear that this Israeli actor who calls Hollywood home, has a lot to be cheerful about. After all, once an unknown, Fehr is being rigorously courted by the press, as he talks with enthusiasm about the hard work he endured shooting The Mummy Returns on location in Morocco. Now remember that it is over 100 degrees, there are real scorpions, massive battle scenes. But what does Fehr think the toughest part of shooting this film was? "Walking around in a dress and high heels was the hard part", he says, Israeli accent still in toe. "When I'm going up the steps, constantly tripping over myself, not to mention being made fun of by all the other actors, that's the hard part." It's good to have a sense of humour and Fehr has that in spades. Not that working in the desert was a piece of cake by any means. "Oh, we had sandstorms and floods, we even had hail the size of ice cubes." The Ten Plagues perhaps. "It was certainly unnatural. I don't normally believe in curses, but boy oh boy, it was almost as if somebody didn't want us to film. You'd wake up in the morning and it was a beautiful blue sky, then you'd get on set and then all of a sudden a sandstorm would hit." All's fun in love and moviemaking.

The Mummy Returns is the much-anticipated sequel to the hit actioner that briefly introduced us to Fehr's mysterious Med-jai leader, in the closing act of the original. The sequel is set in 1935, 10 years after the events of the first film. Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) is now married to Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), and the couple have settled in London, where they are raising their 9-year-old son Alex (Freddie Boath). When a chain of events finds the corpse of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) resurrected in the British Museum, the mummy Imhotep walks the earth once more, determined to fulfil his quest for immortality. But another force has also been set loose in the world...one born of the darkest rituals of ancient Egyptian mysticism, and even more powerful than Imhotep. It's up to Fehr's Ardeth Bay, to help destroy this ancient Egyptian army of darkness.

In the film's climatic third act, Fehr participates in one of the most extraordinary battle sequences ever put on film, but unlike Lawrence of Arabia, Fehr ends up lopping the heads off computer-generated characters. As an actor, Fehr admits that a certain amount of precision was required during this logistically complex shoot. "You had to be precise about your reactions", the actor carefully explains. "You have to be precise more with your emotions than the physicality of it all, because you're fighting a really silly looking blue-suited kind of stunt guy, while in fact you're actually fighting a nine-foot prehistoric creature thing. Therefore you need to bring with you a great deal of intensity where there's nothing there to be intense with." Add to that fighting an unseen effect with large swords and you have your work cut out for you. "As far as being able to do the cuts perfectly right, you can only try and do the best you can, and make yourself believe that you're actually hitting something."

Even having been a soldier in the Israeli army did not prepare Fehr for the kind of desert warfare he encountered shooting The Mummy Returns. "Oh God it's so different. The Israeli army was a piece of cake in comparison to all the tough horse training I did for this film. I've never worked so hard in all my life."