It did not help that the cast and crew learned at first hand as soon as they touched down at the airport that the country had the world's greatest variety of snakes, most of them deadly.

It was - almost - enough to make Hudson say: 'OK, kill my character, I'm going home.' Hudson plays Monroe Kelly, a smart-mouthed jungle-wise guide with an upper crust British accent, who is employed to take scientists and a greedy explorer into the Congo's Virunga region.

In fact, filming was largely done on specially-built sound-stages in the Sony Studios. But for about six weeks, Hudson and his co-stars had to call the snake-infested jungles and volcanoes of Costa Rica home.

Still on the subject of those snakes, Hudson continued: 'The studios says it was only one or two, but I know we caught about 20 snakes when we were there.' To keep snakes away, a man Hudson calls the 'snake guy' was hired.

'They'd send him in after we'd been in,' he said. 'I mean, let him go in first. What do I need him for when I'm sitting on a snake and I'm dead?' Snakes were not the only danger. Innocent-looking insect bites also had a way of turning into festering sores, as one of the scouts found out.

'He had been bitten by a mosquito and something had laid eggs in the wound,' Hudson said.

'The Costa Rican doctor tied bacon to his leg and, within 20 minutes, all these worms were crawling out and I thought, 'this could be bad'.' The cast also had to hike up the side of two active volcanoes, one of which had erupted in 1969 and wiped out everyone within a six-kilometre radius.

'One was going off every couple of hours and there were tremors all the time,' Hudson said.

'Frank [Marshall, the director of Congo] came up quite excited and said the government, which normally did not allow people within a certain radius of the volcano, was making an exception for us.

'And I'm thinking, 'no, it's not very exciting because he's going to be up in the helicopter while we are walking up this thing with fumes coming out of the ground'.' Hudson - whose impressive film credits include The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Ghostbusters and Leviathan - worked on the ill-fated The Crow, in which a freak accident killed actor Brandon Lee.

That, he said, made him realise that 'you can actually get hurt doing this'.

But Hudson said that doing Congo was fun.

'In hindsight, when I look at a scene, I say 'this is where we saw the big snake' or 'that happened here',' he said.

It was the anticipation of fun that drew Hudson to the role in the first place.

'It was great fun working with Frank Marshall and the cast, with very different people,' Hudson said.

'I knew when I first read the book that Frank wanted to make something fun.

'I did eight movies last year and played the down policeman in five of them. I got so sick of them and was looking to do something different.

'As an actor, the one time when we can really have fun is when we're working. Most of the other times is spent finding jobs or worrying if you'll ever work again.' Congo, which opened in the United States to impressive box office takings, was not generally well-received by critics although Hudson got rave reviews.

Hudson said: 'Part of the problem with the film in the States is reviewers took it too seriously. They wanted something more complicated. I think the movie is pretty much what it is: fun.' Congo, Panasia circuit, Majestic, New York, Ocean, Gateway and Lee Theatres