Pierce Brosnan possibly heading for Leeds for son`s stage debut
12-Jul-2006 • Actor News
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Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan could be heading for Leeds this month to see his son Sean make his stage debut.
Mr Brosnan Jnr is playing Romeo in the annual Leeds Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet, which comes to Kirkstall Abbey on July 25.
Rumour is rife that the Hollywood actor could be heading for the cloisters at Kirkstall Abbey to see his son perform.
Sean is one of Mr Brosnan's five children, the only child he had with his wife Cassandra, who died in 1987.
Sean Brosnan has two older half-siblings, Charlotte and Chris, born to his mother Cassandra before she met his father, and two younger half-siblings that his father has had with new wife Keely Shaye Smith.
He's not the only member of the Brosnan family currently in the limelight. His brother Christopher, to whom he says he is close, can be seen on ITV's reality programme Love Island.
The 22-year-old decided to follow his father into the acting profession after leaving the highly regarded Millfield boarding school in Somerset.
But while the former James Bond actor has filmed in glamorous locations around the world and calls home either a luxury house in Hawaii, or one in Malibu, Mr Brosnan Jnr will be calling home whichever Travelodge he is booked into while travelling the country with the British Shakespeare company.
"I always wanted to be an actor," said Mr Brosnan, who appeared in the film Robinson Crusoe with his father 10 years ago when he was just 12.
"It was something that was always around me at home and at school and I never really wanted to do anything else. After school I spoke to Dad and he was totally supportive. He said if I wanted to do it, then I should just go for it."
Mr Brosnan was well aware that his name could open many doors in the profession he had chosen, but he decided that if he made it as an actor he wanted it to be on his own merit.
"Yes, nepotism could have played a big part in my career if I wanted it to," he admits. "Instead of going to drama school, I could have easily gone to LA to star in some bad teen movie and made a name for myself that way."
Having decided that he would rather make his own fame with the Brosnan name, he promptly dropped it.
When the young aspiring actor auditioned for the Central School of Speech and Drama after finishing his A-Levels in 2002, he applied under the name Sean Goldman.
"Professionally I was always going to use my name because it's a part of my heritage and it's something I'm very proud of, it's part of me and my roots, but I wanted to audition under a different name as much for myself as anything else."
Mr Brosnan graduated last summer and has since appeared in several short films, but this is his first time on stage.
"It is hard work â at the end of the day, when I go to bed, I know I've done a day of work," said the actor, who will be appearing alongside Mina Anwar from Goodness Gracious Me and dancer Wayne Sleep.
Although at the beginning of his career, Mr Brosnan says he is well aware of the pitfalls that fame may have in store for him. As well as coping with the death of his mother when he was a child, he was in a serious car crash in 2000 and was in intensive care for several weeks and in hospital for six months â and had to deal with these events in the media spotlight.
He said: "I talked to Dad about all that before I decided I wanted to be an actor and I realise that there are sacrifices you have to make.
"I know people are going to judge me before I even walk through a door, but that's something I have just learned to live with."
His brother Christopher will also be coming under scrutiny in the coming weeks on TV's Love Island. Mr Brosnan's older brother has a chequered past, with a history of drug abuse.
Mr Brosnan added: "I personally wouldn't want to do anything like that, but if he wants to go and live on a desert island with beautiful women and get paid for it, that's up to him. We are close and I know that what he has gone through has made him a strong person as well, so I think he'll be okay."
The director of Romeo and Juliet and producer of the Leeds Shakespeare Festival, Robert J Williamson, said: "I know that Pierce is proud of his son making his stage debut. He was hoping to come and see him in Edinburgh, but put it off because the weather is awful, so his only other chance to get to see his son on stage will be in Kirkstall â we'd all love to see him at the abbey."
He added he was impressed with Mr Brosnan Jnr.
"I really think he will go a long way in his career, so it's great for us to have him here at the beginning. His Romeo is brilliant, he has a real charm that he brings to the part and he is a good- looking lad â just like his dad."
n Romeo and Juliet is being performed alongside A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the Leeds Shakespeare Festival at Kirkstall Abbey from July 25 to August 20. For tickets ring 0113 224 3801.
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