Pierce Brosnan `didn`t see that coming` when dropped as 007

"I didn't see that coming," Pierce Brosnan tells Parade magazine about not having his contract renewed as 007 after his fourth film "Die Another Day" in 2002.

"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."

The Irish actor knew his days as James Bond were numbered, but figured producers would give him one last hurrah before passing the torch.

"I thought we were going to do a fifth film," he says. "And I was going to take a gracious bow off the stage. Instead of that you're just told, 'Goodbye.'"

Now 55, Pierce has since traded in tuxes for t-shirts, living with wife Keely and their sons Dylan, 11, and Paris, 7, in Hawaii. His next flick, a big-screen production of Mamma Mia! hits theaters July 18, and he has made peace with the end of his Bond tenure.

"That's the way it goes down in life," he says. "It's as hard and as fast as that."

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