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Cate Blanchett is Agent Irina Spalko

The 38 year-old actress, dubbed The Queen of Australia by Nicole Kidman, has done pretty much everything in her career, from playing royalty, both real and Elvish, to becoming Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. Still, nothing could prep her for the school of hard knocks that constitutes shooting a different kind of Indie movie.

"Honestly, I've never done anything like Indiana Jones," Ms Blanchett says excitedly. "And obviously, that seemed a good reason to do it in the first place! Believe it or not, I have always wanted to do something with lots of action in it, so when Steven Spielberg says, 'Be a part of this,' I could hardly say, 'No!' I grew up with those films, and they're part of my cinematic landscape."

By undertaking her own journey into that landscape, accepting the part of wicked Russian agent Spalko, Blanchett was able to indulge a certain ruthlessness - her character, says producer Frank Marshall, is "severe" - and she clearly revelled in her new-found nastiness. With a stern hairdo and rather dour grey attire, Spalko recalls Rosa Klebb (albeit a more attractive version than actress Lotte Lenya), the unpleasant killer with shoes to die for (or die on) who kicks out at Bond in From Russia With Love.

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Karen Allen is Marion Ravenwood

"Everybody seems happy that my character's back," says Karen Allen from Massachusetts. "People seems so glad that they didn't bring in some 30-year-old. The feedback I'm getting is, 'Oh, thank god you're back!'"

Ms Allen got the call to reprise Marion Ravenwood just after the movie was announced in January 2007. She reunited with Ford at a make-up test - "I'd seen him from time to time in between but not that often" - and the shooting schedule required them to get up-close-and-personal from the get-go.

"The very first sentence was actually a funny one that required physical thrusting of our bodies. We had a difficult passage where we were both bumping into things and getting bruised. I found myself saying to Harrison,'I'm so delighted to be working with you'."

Allen warms to discussing her cast mates, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett and the Brit duo of John Hurt and Ray Winstone. "The three of us find ourselves in outlandish predicament in the film. John hurt is great. We kept laughing about him becoming an action star! Ray is the class clown. He is a riot on set."

But Marion's relationship with Indy holds the most intrigue. Has the commitment-phobic Jones improved his touch with the ladies since they last met?

"In Raiders I had to hit him with a mirror to get him to take notice," she laughs. "Then he fell asleep on me. He's more attuned this time round."

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Shia LaBeouf is Mutt Williams

Luckily for him, the call from Steven Spielberg arrived, confirming what the 21-year-old had dreamed was true. A few months later he found himself on an Air Force base in Alamogordo, new Mexico, for the first day of stunt rehearsals.

Mr LaBeouf, who plays leader-jacketed delinquent Mutt, had a daunting chase scene early in the shooting schedule. He would have to navigate a motorbike at high speed through the streets of Yale with Harrison Ford riding shotgun. No pressure then.

"I had to learn not just how to ride a bike, but how to ride a bike," he says. "I'm told that Harrison will be turning up. Suddenly we hear a massive whoosh! and everyone looks to the sky. A helicopter lands in the middle of the base, and out of it comes Harrison Ford. Everyone there, 50 stuntment, stop what they're doing and stare. And he waves to everyone, walks round, and from the glove compartment pulls out the whip. It was the most cinematic thing I've ever seen not on a movie set. And this was how I first Harrison Ford..."

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