007 James Bond actor: Pierce Brosnan

Who: Pierce Brendan
Brosnan

After Remington Steele,
Brosnan appeared in films such as The
Fourth Protocol
and Mrs.
Doubtfire. In
1995, he became the fifth actor to portray secret agent James
Bond in the Eon Productions film
series, starring in
four films between 1995 and 2002. He also provided his voice and likeness to
Bond in the 2004 video game James
Bond 007: Everything or Nothing.

Pierce Brosnan trivia facts:

• Had been worked as a taxi driver, a
  fire-eater, and a worker who cleaned people’s houses for Domestics Unlimited
  before his acting career took off.

• Has been both the lightest and heaviest actor who
  portrayed James Bond as he weighed 164 pounds during the filming of GoldenEye (1995), then increased to 211 pounds while making Die Another Day (2002). 

• His favorite Bond movies are From Russia with Love (1963) and For Your Eyes Only (1981) while his least favorite one is On Her Majesty’s Secret
  Service (1969). 

James
Bond: 1995–2005

Brosnan first met James Bond films producer Albert R. Broccoli on the sets
of For Your Eyes Only because his
first wife, Cassandra Harris, was in the
film. Broccoli said, “if he can act … he’s my guy” to inherit
the role of Bond from Roger Moore. It was
reported by both Entertainment Tonight and the National
Enquirer, that Brosnan was going to inherit another role of
Moore’s, that of Simon Templar in The Saint. Brosnan
denied the rumours in July 1993 but added, “it’s still languishing there
on someone’s desk in Hollywood.”

In 1986, NBC
cancelled Remington Steele and Brosnan was offered the role as James
Bond, but the publicity revived Remington Steele. His contract with the Remington
Steele producers required him to resume his role and he regretfully declined
the Bond role. The producers instead hired Timothy Dalton for The
Living Daylights
(1987), and Licence
to Kill (1989).
Legal squabbles between the Bond producers and the studio over distribution
rights resulted in the cancellation of a proposed third Dalton film in 1991 and
put the Bond series on a hiatus for several years. After the legal issues had
been resolved, Dalton decided not to return for a third film. On 7 June 1994,
Brosnan was announced as the fifth actor to play Bond.

Brosnan was signed for a three-film Bond deal with the option of a
fourth. The first, 1995’s GoldenEye,
grossed US $350 million worldwide, the fourth highest worldwide gross of
any film in 1995, making it the most successful Bond film since Moonraker,
adjusted for inflation. It holds an 80% Rotten
tomato rating, while Metacritic
holds it at 65%. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4,
saying that Brosnan’s Bond was “somehow more sensitive, more vulnerable,
more psychologically complete” than the previous ones, also commenting on
Bond’s “loss of innocence” since previous films. James
Berardinelli
described Brosnan as “a decided improvement over his immediate
predecessor” with a “flair for wit to go along with his natural
charm”, but added that “fully one-quarter of Goldeneye is
momentum-killing padding.”

In 1996, Brosnan formed a
film production company entitled “Irish DreamTime” along with
producing partner and long time friend Beau St. Clair. Three years later the
company’s first studio project, The
Thomas Crown Affair,
was released and met both critical and box office success.

Brosnan returned in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies and 1999’s The World Is Not Enough,
which were also successful. In 2002, Brosnan appeared for his fourth time as
Bond in Die Another Day, receiving
mixed reviews but was a success at the box office. Brosnan himself subsequently
criticised many aspects of his fourth Bond movie. During the promotion, he
mentioned that he would like to continue his role as James Bond: “I’d like
to do another, sure. Connery did six. Six would be a number,
then never come back.” Brosnan
asked Eon
Productions, when
accepting the role, to be allowed to work on other projects between Bond films.
The request was granted, and for every Bond film, Brosnan appeared in at least
two other mainstream films, including several he produced, playing a wide range
of roles, ranging from a scientist in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!, to the title role in Grey Owl which documents the life of
Englishman Archibald
Stansfeld Belaney,
one of Canada’s first conservationists.

Shortly after the release of Die Another Day, the media began
questioning whether or not Brosnan would reprise the role for a fifth time. At that time, Brosnan was approaching
his 50th birthday. Brosnan kept in mind that both fans and critics were very
unhappy with Roger Moore playing the role until he was 58, but
he was receiving popular support from both critics and the franchise fanbase
for a fifth instalment. For this reason, he remained enthusiastic about
reprising his role. In October 2004, Brosnan said he considered himself
dismissed from the role. Although Brosnan had been rumoured frequently as still
in the running to play 007, he had denied it several times, and in February
2005 he posted on his website that he was finished with the role. Daniel Craig took over the role on 14 October
2005. In an interview with The
Globe and Mail,
Brosnan was asked what he thought of Daniel Craig as the new James Bond. He replied,
“I’m looking forward to it like we’re all looking forward to it. Daniel Craig
is a great actor and he’s going to do a fantastic job”. He reaffirmed this
support in an interview to the International
Herald Tribune,
stating that “[Craig’s] on his way to becoming a memorable Bond.”

During his tenure on
the James Bond films, Brosnan also took part in James Bond video games. In
2002, Brosnan’s likeness was used as the face of Bond in the James Bond video game Nightfire (voiced by Maxwell
Caulfield). In 2004, Brosnan starred in the Bond game Everything or
Nothing, contracting for his likeness to be used as well
as doing the voice-work for the character. He also starred along with Jamie Lee Curtis and Geoffrey Rush in The Tailor of Panama in 2001, and lent
his voice to The
Simpsons episode “Treehouse
of Horror XII”, as a machine with Pierce Brosnan’s
voice.

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