Pierce Brosnan - breaking the Bonds

Retiring 007 Pierce Brosnan -- whose four-film reign as super spy James Bond came to an abrupt end last year with the announcement that Daniel Craig would take over the iconic role and who has complained in print about the "titanic jolt to the system" he initially felt upon getting the call that broke the news -- would rather not say anything more on the subject - reports North Jersey. "I've spoken enough about it," he says, with a sigh, audible through the telephone. "I wish Daniel all the success and happiness."

Still, the actor who has come to be associated with shaken-not-stirred cool, thanks to his association with writer Ian Fleming's character (not to mention his mid-1980s TV stint as playboy thief-turned-detective Remington Steele), feels the need to point out one thing: His role in "The Matador" as a profane, debauched hit man undergoing a midlife crisis is by no stretch of the imagination intended as a rebuttal to his debonair public image.

"It had nothing to do with 'anti-Bond' anything," he says, calling that spin "so much publicity verbiage. I never thought, 'This is great. It'll get me out of the box, out of the corner.'(thin space)"

And yet, and yet.

Maybe taking the role even he acknowledges is a "gritty, sharp left turn" from what he has been known for did have a kind of perverse appeal. "I'd been wondering when something would come along, for a number of years, as the belts got tighter and tighter on Bond," he says. "It's a huge persona to get yourself away from. I'd always been aware of that, even before the call came."

The truth, says Brosnan (whose production company, Irish DreamTime, produced the film), is that he wasn't initially aware of how much of a left turn it would actually entail until well into the process. "You're only aware in the doing of it. [You think,] 'This is going to surprise an audience.' They file into a darkened theater: 'Oh, look, there's Brosnan. He's wearing this crazy mustache, painting his toenails, says [expletive] off to a kid, blows a guy to smithereens, walks through a hotel lobby in his knickers.'

"Dark comedy is very difficult," Brosnan adds. "You have to bring the audience in and push them away at the same time."

The finished product, of course, is a little less dark than originally envisioned in writer-director Richard Shepard's early versions of the script. That's because Brosnan, as producer, suddenly began to have qualms that his character, a psychopathic assassin named Julian Noble, might be even more alienating than his decadent character in "The Tailor of Panama."

"There was one weekend there where I had a petit mal [seizure]," he jokes. "As I was setting sail on the project, I went instinctively. Then all at once I thought, 'Is this too sharp of a turn?

Has the pendulum swung too far?' So we investigated the script. And we pulled back. Technically, less is more, anyway. [Julian] originally was this flamboyant, vulgarian voice: bisexual, trisexual, try anything. And as much as I thought it was extremely funny in this vulgar way, I didn't want to bang on the audience's head.

"I made a lot of people very sad that weekend," he continues, recalling that as both leading man and producer, one sometimes has to be a behind-the-scenes heavy. "By Wednesday, it was all right. We simply pulled [Julian's] sexuality back and took out some jokes that were just foul."

Producing demands a completely different skill set from the classically trained actor, who after eight years of sharing producing duties with his longtime friend and business partner, Beaumarie St. Clair, on films such as "The Nephew," "Evelyn," "Laws of Attraction" and "The Thomas Crown Affair," says he is still learning the back-office ropes. "It's an ongoing education in literature, filmmaking and business -- or, I should say, my own lack of business acumen. Fortunately, we've got a great team in place."

Brosnan compares the variety of films he has made for Irish DreamTime with examples of another art form. "I look at them like paintings," he says. "It's great to go out in big, bold colors, with a popcorn flick like 'Thomas Crown,' and then to drop down into small drama like 'Evelyn.'(thin space)"

It's a mix of the large and small, of the multiplex and the art house, of Hollywood and his Irish roots, and of playing bad guys and good guys that Brosnan has no intention of abandoning.

Right now, he's working on "Seraphim Falls," a Civil War drama in which the actor plays a mysterious hunted man who, as the film opens, is seen picking off, one by one, the members of a posse (led by Liam Neeson) that is pursuing him across a desert. After that, he'll take a second stab at playing Thomas Crown in the Irish DreamTime-produced "The Topkapi Affair." Although it's already "in the works," according to Brosnan, his company had been "reluctant" to do a sequel to the 1999 remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair" for some years.

Sure, the part of Thomas Crown offers another plum role (and another playboy thief no less!) for Brosnan, who by now can play these debonair criminals in his sleep. But the real reason he has hesitated to make the movie might serve to make Daniel Craig a little less nervous about living up to the world's impossibly high expectations of the new James Bond: "Who wouldn't be reluctant? It's risky to step into the hallowed shoes of Steve McQueen."

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