Did you miss working with Rachel Weisz?

FRASER: When I read the script, I couldn't not see her. I couldn't not hear her voice. I couldn't not have a sense of thinking that her absence will be felt. I wasn't certain if-- or not she was going to do it. I'd seen her backstage during awards season before she won her Oscar - and we discussed it but she's a friend and a colleague.

So, no begging phone calls: "Please, come back!?"

FRASER: From me? No, I wouldn't disrespect her like that. I've got kids, I just know that it may be too much of a volatile journey to make with a newborn. So for certain, I never did. Before that, what I had to do was remind myself, okay look, a role is a role. In a play, so many different actors have played so many different roles as we all know; Rachel definitely put her indelible thumbprint on Evie Carnahan, and the spirit of the movie is and has and I believe still is one that is tongue-in-cheek and fun. We introduce Maria Bello who doesn't just step in, I think stands up. And she did a knock-up good job and made the role her own, brought a great deal of moxie and smarts and intuition, and she's such a strong actress that she kept me and Rob and everyone-- and the kid, Luke Ford, he's an emerging talent from Australia. He plays Alex now as a young man, pretty much on track, with - you need to remember that this essentially a story about a family and they're trying to reunite - okay, outside of all the noise and sound and fury and all the movie-going fun that is what the experience of working on this picture is - and having Rob Cohen as a director ('Fast and Furious' and 'Triple X'), and pictures like that prove that hey, this guy knows how to move big set pieces really well. He's fearless for sure and he doesn't suffer fools lightly, and he really appreciates people who are at the top of their game and expects that, demands that.

I really admire that because I like to be challenged. I like to be able to look at something and go, "Can I really do this?" And then bring something to it - but he always made sure that he stayed true to the vision of this being a picture that is a new one in and of itself, and that's by virtue, that it's been six or seven years now since the second picture. Before that we also have a whole new generation of people who have come to see the movie and who are likely, if pulled, gonna go back and look at the first two if they want to, they want to get to know the characters, or we can use this as a premise for where we'll go from here and given that Rob is a highly talented guy - on top of being a maverick - in a former life of his he was a Harvard student who was an archeology major with a particular interest in ancient Chinese history.

So it's seven years later now and you're just turning 40. What does it mean to you?

FRASER: Oh, my age? Cry me a river - I'm turning 40 in December! What am I gonna do? How does it make me feel? It made me feel a sense of what we had to work into the dynamic of the movie, it's sort of like the old Beau and the young Beau, and what are they gonna do, lock horns? "I know how to do it!" "No, I know how to do it!" "We're doing this my way!" "No, we're doing this my way!" And then Mom comes in and throws a bucket of cold water on everybody, so that became the joke. We made it work for us as best as we could and allowed for the period of the world of the film to progress so that - we touch on the events of the Second World War, but let's remember that this is entertainment, ultimately, but we can't overlook the gravity of the state of world affairs at the time and allow for its audience who, if they're not paying attention to the first two pictures to see how Evie and Rick have come along from having met in the desert; the second picture they're a happily married couple, they're back on the trail and now some time has come by in the third one where Rick has hung up his guns. Actually he has a whole closet full of stuff of failed hobbies that he just couldn't take up, cricket bats and stuff. I think he did fly fishing unsuccessfully. He winds up blowing apart a cart with a six-shooter... but you'll see the movie!

You lived in Holland. What is most vivid memory of Holland?

FRASER: The canals, I loved. A vivid memory of my first summer there, seeing people eating herring with their head tilted - this is pickled herring? I thought that was rather unusual. Many, many of them: the Rijkes Museum, the house of Anne Frank - I had a resonating experience, many fond memories... Pete's pub.

Where did you live?

FRASER: Our house, as I did know it at the time, but now it's kind of like the Beverly Hills of Holland. Wow, I didn't know that until the fact I mentioned it later to a journalist, and he was like, "Oh, well." When we were in Holland - but the house we lived in was this little squashed thing that had a crack around the side of it because a buzz bomb just fired through it and came down on one of the neighborhoods. Those were the days, vivid memories were back there. It was the mid '70s, there were grandmothers who had recollections of their children and being liberated and thought I was a Canadian, well, still am. Let's just say we got a better table in the restaurant.

Did you try some exotic food in China?

FRASER: I think I did but I didn't know that it was exotic. I thought it was a club sandwich.

The China setting... Is that deliberate?

FRASER: Absolutely. I should mention we're unearthing the Terra Cotta warriors. We're putting together what we already know.

Was it intentional to set it there knowing the film's coming out in Summer?

FRASER: I think it's 50/50 part good luck, and it'll have some resonance in parts of the world. I'm excited about this. Also, it's a Summer movie, it comes out in August.