Pierce Brosnan moves on after getting “to old” for James Bond
Posted on June 16th, 2008 by Hot Momma
In a new interview with Parade conducted from his oceanfront Hawaii home, Pierce Brosnan said that he, wife Keely Shaye Smith and their two sons Dylan Thomas, 11, and Paris Beckett, 7 are leading “a very simple life” — and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Moving to the island from the mainland has afforded his family a “very insular” and “rewarding” lifestyle, Pierce said. He added:
It has allowed me to be a father who can sit quietly with my two young sons, Dylan and Paris. I paint, and they paint. And we play guitar. We play ukulele. My wife is an ace gardener, and the kids get in the mud with her.
But this quiet lifestyle is somewhat of a result of the fickle fates of being an actor. The now 55-year-old actor tells Parade:
“It’s a hard game, the movie game. You’re judged constantly. You have to be as tough as old boots. You have to keep up as an actor—physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally—just to be there, because, when the opportunity comes around, the door can close so quickly. ‘Do you sing?’ Of course I sing. ‘Do you sky-dive?’ Of course I do. ‘Do you fight?’ Yeah. ‘Are you a lover?’ Are you kidding? ‘What are you?’ So that’s ingrained in me, as an actor, to be prepared, I suppose.”
Brosnan wasn’t prepared when he got a phone call out of the blue about four years ago saying his tenure as 007 was done. Daniel Craig would take over the part of James Bond. “I didn’t see that coming,” he says. “I thought we were going to do a fifth film. And I was going to take a gracious bow off the stage. Instead of that, you are just told, ‘Goodbye.’ That’s the way it goes down in life. It’s as hard and as fast as that. I had done my contract. They had invited me back, and they changed their mind. It’s business.”
The implication was that Brosnan, was too old for the part. Women in the movie business are used to hearing that, but not a guy who’s still a leading man. “That was a shock, yes,” he says with a laugh. “I never thought of myself as being too old. It was startling to hear such things said about oneself, especially when you thought you were going down that particular avenue, and then the door gets slammed in your face.”
So though he loves his laid-back life in Hawaii, Brosnan admits he’s ready to go back to the mainland. “I’m a worker,” he says. “Every job I got I had to fight for. I’ve been lucky, but I’ve worked hard at it. I love making movies. I love the adventure of being an actor. I have to stay sharp.”
Brosnan has adjusted and shown his range in roles from suave to seedy in movies like Evelyn, The Matador, and Seraphim Falls. Soon we’ll see him take the biggest stretch of his career when he serenades Meryl Streep in the screen version of the popular musical Mamma Mia! It opens July 18.
Older (Possibly) Related Posts:
No comments yet.