Michelle Pfeiffer in Michael Vaughn’s (below) Stardust

Matthew Vaughn has had better days. He has been on planes for most of the past week, he is red-eyed from lack of sleep, suffering from severe jet-lag, and has to fly to Germany the next day for his father-in-law’s funeral.

“I’m sorry — I’m a bit out of it,” he says, sitting down for lunch at a Beverly Hills hotel, but not eating. “Monday I was in Chicago; Tuesday, London; Wednesday, Germany; Thursday, here. And I’m going back to Germany tomorrow. Then I’m coming back here… and I’m not good at flying."

He tugs at his baseball cap and does his best to concentrate on the matter at hand, which is talking about his second directing job, Stardust, a £35 million fantasy fable packed with big names and sparkling with special effects.

It is based on the fairy tale by Neil Gaiman that unfolded in a four-book DC Comics mini-series in 1997 and became a bestseller when it was released in book form a year later. A tricky mix of a young man’s coming-of-age journey and a fantastical tale of witches, ghosts and power-mad princes all trying to kidnap a mystical fallen star, it would seem to be a somewhat odd vehicle for Vaughn, who is best-known for producing the visceral and gritty Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and whose directing debut was the acclaimed gangster thriller Layer Cake (2004).

Yet, despite its many narrative strands and a star-packed cast most directors could only dream of — Robert De Niro, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ian McKellen, Peter ’Toole, Ricky Gervais, Sienna Miller, Rupert Everett and relative newcomer Charlie Cox — Stardust came together remarkably swiftly and smoothly. “It was quite an easy movie to make,” says Vaughn. “It was trouble-free. We put it together so quickly it just happened. I think it was meant to be. I wrote the script in two weeks, and we got finance eight weeks later. I was very lucky with the cast. They all read the script and liked it.”

They also went along with Vaughn’s idea of casting them against type: the taciturn De Niro, as the rugged but unconventional pirate Captain Shakespeare, willingly donned a dress and danced the can-can in one scene, and the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer was happy to portray a scary old witch in search of eternal youth.

“I was amazed that Bob went for it, and he was great,” says Vaughn. “And I don’t think a lot of Hollywood actresses would have done what Michelle did in a million years. We laughed a lot about how Hollywood is obsessed about looking young, and we decided to take the piss out of it.”

In other circumstances, it would be an enjoyable and triumphant return for Vaughn to Hollywood, where he once thought he had burned his bridges. His wife, the former model Claudia Schiffer, and their two young children were due to accompany him to Los Angeles for Stardust’s premiere, but her father’s sudden death in Germany cast a pall.

Still, Vaughn can’t help savouring the satisfaction of knowing he did the right thing when he risked his career by walking out on the £100 million X-Men 3: The Last Stand after he had been hired by Fox to take over the lucrative franchise. “I didn’t have the time to make the movie that I wanted to make. I had a vision for how it should be, and I wanted to make sure I was making a film as good as X-Men 2, and I knew there was no way it could be. I just suddenly knew it wasn’t the right thing for me to do. It was a tough decision because it was a hell of an opportunity. But I was trying to make a career as a director, and I didn’t want to be the guy accused of making a bad X-Men movie.”

Happily, Neil Gaiman, with whom he had worked on a short film, gave him the go-ahead for Stardust. “The X-Men thing could have been a death knell,” says Vaughan. “I had to be very, very careful because Hollywood could have said, ‘Who does he think he is? He walked off a big movie.’ So it was a scary time doing Stardust.”

The 36-year-old Vaughn discovered as a teenager that his father was George Albert Harley Drummond, godson of King George VI, godfather to the model Jodie Kidd and a descendant of the third Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. He adopted the surname Vaughn and, after leaving Stowe School, went to Los Angeles, where he worked as an assistant in the film industry before returning to London. At 27, he teamed up with friend Guy Ritchie to produce Lock, Stock…, which was made for less than £1 million, took in about £50 million, and reportedly earned them £9 million each.

Vaughn then went on to produce Snatch, which turned out to be an even bigger money-maker, and the critically mauled Swept Away. Then, when Ritchie dropped out of directing the £4 million Layer Cake, Vaughn stepped in, even though he had no experience behind the camera and, oddly for a director, is colour blind. It was another financial success, grossing about £30 million and bearing out Vaughn’s comment that, “I make films cheaply, and I know how to make money.”

He also has a keen eye for star-spotting, which he demonstrated by hiring the then little-known Sienna Miller and Daniel Craig as Layer Cake’s co-stars. “To me, it was obvious when they came in for the casting session,” he says. “I remember when Sienna walked through the door: I knew she was going to be massive. And the same with Daniel. It’s their talent and charisma that is making them pop, and I was lucky enough to find them.”

Despite his jet-setting lifestyle, Vaughn intends to remain in London, although he does not rule out a brief return to Hollywood to make a movie if he can find a suitable project. “I haven’t found anything I like yet so I might have to write something again. I’ve got to keep on my toes.”