No one in the new heist film National Treasure will admit to ever having stolen anything. "I have no record," jokes Nicolas Cage. "I'm boring." No one, that is, except for Diane Kruger, the German-born beauty who has gone from filling Helen's toga in Troy to protecting the Declaration of Independence.

"I stole a notebook from a store when I was around five years old," she says, "I just liked the design of it. My mom said, 'No way,' and I really wanted it, but I felt so guilty that I returned it three days later."

There's a bigger score at stake in National Treasure. Cage is Benjamin Franklin Gates, a treasure hunter who has dedicated his life to finding the lost booty of the Knights Templar. He's stumbles on a clue that leads him to a map printed on the back of the Declaration. So has his ruthless nemesis, played by Lord of the Rings' Sean Bean. Gates must steal the precious document to keep it out of harm's way.

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The $100 million adventure is the latest Thanksgiving feast from Jerry Bruckheimer. Dubbed the most powerful man in Hollywood by Entertainment Weekly, the producer made his name with flashy entertainments like Top Gun, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and the South Park guys' least favorite film, Pearl Harbor. Anyone expecting more mindless explosions this time, though, could be pleasantly surprised.

"There's a lot of North By Northwest in the movie," says Bruckheimer, citing the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock classic that found Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint scurrying around Mt. Rushmore. Hitchcock and Grant are names that keep coming up. Cage likens Treasure to the frothy To Catch a Thief, while Kruger says director Jon Turteltaub (The Kid) wanted the camaraderie between the costars to have "a little of the old Hollywood feel."

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The key to finding that tone? Bruckheimer knows. "Casting is enormously important," he says, noting that the rising young star Justin Bartha will make everyone forget about his appearance in Gigli with his role as Cage's wisecracking sidekick. As clean-up hitters, Jon Voight appears as Cage's disapproving father and Harvey Kietel is the FBI agent hot on his heels.

It's Kruger, however, who must strike sparks off Cage's unflappable fortune hunter. The two play out what she calls a "love/hate relationship" after she's swept up in his scheme. First the 28-year-old had to get over starring opposite the Oscar-winner she watched in Adaptation while at drama school in France.

"I've seen every single film he's ever been in," she gushed. "I was actually really terrified when I had to meet him for the first time for our screen test. The thought that he would think I was a terrible actress! I couldn't even look him in the eye. Thank God, he turned out exactly as I thought he'd be - a little eccentric, a little crazy, but really fun."

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"Nicolas Cage is unique," Bruckheimer agrees. It was Cage's role in Bruckheimer's 1996 hit The Rock that made the Leaving Las Vegas actor a bankable action star. "He's handsome and he can do anything. He can be a super hero or the average guy. In this film he's playing more of who he is - the smart, intelligent, physical individual. I hadn't seen him play that for a while."

Sean Bean points out that as producer, Bruckheimer can get very "hands-on, with the costumes and this and that." But Turteltaub encouraged the actors to mess around. "We could change things around and improvise and ad lib and do things on the spur of the moment," adds the English actor. "It wasn't all set in stone. It was good fun."

While the emphasis is on Cage and Kruger's banter and the thrill of using the back of a $100 bill to find a long-lost horde, the breathlessly-paced movie still has plenty of Bruckheimer moments - although no one ends up stranded on Mt. Rushmore. After spending a week suspended from a van door for a chase scene around Washington, D.C., Kruger said she could see why Cage was such a workout fiend.

"I thought I was in pretty good shape," she laughed. "Then for an entire week I had to hang off that door with the harness and scream at the top of my lungs with the door opening and closing. You do get banged up. Now I understand why Nick goes to the gym everyday."

National Treasure's hero talks about the playfulness of improv, Jerry Bruckheimer's vision, and duking it out with a great white.

National Treasure opens in theatres on November 19.