A grittier Brosnan takes on riskier roles post-Bond

In "Seraphim Falls," a revisionist post-Civil War western, Pierce Brosnan pries a bullet from his arm with a Bowie knife, cauterizes the wound, tumbles over a waterfall in a bear coat and immerses himself in animal entrails. Along the way he also manages to show how far a serious actor will go to outrun his own glamorous persona - reports IHT.

For many, Brosnan will always conjure up the debonair, Brioni-besuited James Bond, every crease a razor's edge and every hair in place. "When you play a role like that," he said in a recent interview, "you live with it forever."

Still, those who saw him in "The Matador" were introduced to a more louche image, that of Brosnan's paunchy hit man, Julian Noble, strutting through the lobby of a Mexican hotel with a margarita, wearing only the tiniest black briefs, combat boots and a mustache.

To play his character in "Seraphim Falls" — Gideon, a lethal ex-Confederate officer — Brosnan was willing to be "dirtier than you've ever been," said the writer and director, David Von Ancken. (The film opens this month in the United States, in April in the United Kingdom, and in May in Argentina and the Netherlands.)

"He just looked at me, and I knew it was O.K.," he said.

A self-described "working, jobbing actor," Brosnan faced a post-Bond predicament of a type more familiar to actresses: how to manage a transition beyond the easy allure of youth. Instead of clinging to what worked in the past, he reached for something new, and what may be the onset of a riskier, more varied actor's life.

"I think he's found his stride," said Richard Shepard, who directed "The Matador." "He's not getting the giant paychecks, but he's already made that kind of money. Now he's saying, 'I might as well start doing stuff that's interesting to me.'"

What's interesting to Brosnan right now is having six months off at his home in Hawaii. "It's a very great luxury in any man's life," he said, speaking by telephone from the islands. "To be with my kids, take stock of things. I knew there was a change coming, creatively, artistically, new beginnings, so to speak, with the Bond role being taken over."

"When you don't know what to do," he added, "the best thing is to do nothing."

Despite a Celtic tendency for self-deprecation, this Irish-born actor has hardly been still. "The Matador," "Seraphim Falls" and the coming "Married Life," with Patricia Clarkson and Rachel McAdams, were shot before his current hiatus. ("I was astounded by the level of his craft," said Ira Sachs, the director of "Married Life." "He's one of the great actors.")

In addition, a sequel to "The Thomas Crown Affair" has been announced. Irish DreamTime, the Los Angeles production company he founded with Beau St. Clair, is flourishing. And Brosnan recently found time, with his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, to fight the construction of liquefied natural gas terminals off the coast of their longtime home in Malibu, California.

Nonetheless it is a time of change for Brosnan, 53, who parted from James Bond less than amicably. He publicly belittled the producers' reliance on formula and may have hastened the divorce by pricing himself out of the role he'd played in four films since 1995.

"I've been off the grid here, so I haven't seen it," Brosnan said of "Casino Royale," starring Daniel Craig. "I think it's been fairly well-documented, my feelings. I think he's a wonderful actor, and I wish him the greatest success. He's on his way to becoming a memorable Bond."

Brosnan meanwhile is on his way to reinventing himself, even if the process has had its bumps. The decision to play a hit man who has lost his edge in "The Matador," for instance, drew inevitable comparisons to his trademark role. "In some respects it made me look like I was thumbing my nose at Bond and all that had gone before, but I always had the greatest respect for the Bond character and the greater opportunities it allowed me to have," he said. "But it was a straitjacket of a piece, in many ways. It did limit one. In the same breath, it has allow me to go off and create my own films, my own work."

Understandably, perhaps there was separation anxiety. Two months before shooting, on a Friday, Brosnan dropped out of "The Matador." "On Saturday I was looking for real hit men to take him out," Shepard said. "But by Monday he sort of sheepishly came back and said, 'You know what, I just had a panic attack.' And it's to his credit that he realized his mistake and saw the opportunity the film offered him."

"Seraphim Falls" is a revenge drama shot in Taos, New Mexico, (at an elevation of 13,000 to 14,000 feet, or about 4,000 to 4,300 meters), and on the cracked desert floor near Santa Fe. Produced by Icon Productions, it features two Irishmen, Brosnan and Liam Neeson, engaged in a brutal manhunt.

"Neither Pierce nor Liam ever really left the set," Van Ancken said, "which doesn't mean much to the lay person, but when you're shooting an exterior movie with no cover, and you're running against the sun everyday, the only reason it got completed in the 40-odd days we had was because both these guys never left."

Another unusual thing about Brosnan is that "you usually don't get a major movie star who's willing to commit to a film where 80 percent of the role is spent being by himself," Van Ancken said. "Tom Hanks in 'Cast Away' maybe, but very few else."

Brosnan deflected the compliment. "I had a great time," he said.

"I remember one of my acting teachers saying: 'Brosnan, you have to contact the other actors. You can't play by yourself. You just act. You just give your performance. You've got to listen.' So maybe some things haven't changed."

Brosnan left his grandparents' home in Ireland at the age of 11 to join his mother in London, where she had been studying to become a nurse. He has lived in the United States for 23 years and is now a U.S. citizen. He has also lived under a spotlight few actors have had to withstand. Which is tough when you are, as Brosnan seems to be, naturally unguarded.

"I used to be so confessional in talking to the press," he said.

"And then life goes on, and you realize you've spoken too much, and not very coherently, about not very much."

But he still tends toward self-revelation.

"One thinks of oneself as being adventuresome and courageous, and then you look around and find yourself being rather boring and conservative, and that's the last thing any actor wants to be," he said. After Bond he realized that he had, throughout his career, largely been playing himself.

"And you get sick of playing yourself," he said. "And you find yourself not getting decent enough roles, or roles that are exciting or roles that grip you and shake things up. 'The Matador' was serendipitous, so was 'Seraphim Falls.' From an actor's point of view, they were good lessons learned."

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