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Post by Ace on Feb 17, 2010 21:36:00 GMT -5
www.usatoday.com/life/people/2010-02-18-Brosnan18_ST_N.htmUSA Today: A busy Pierce Brosnan is having a blastPierce Brosnan is a busy man. He has four movies hitting theaters within a matter of weeks. By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY NEW YORK — After 31 years in front of the camera, Pierce Brosnan feels like a whippersnapper. "I'm at the point now where it's really just great fun," Brosnan says. "It's like I'm in repertory theater. All these films are, hopefully, completely different. It's like going back to the beginning of a career." The Irish actor, 56, has four disparate films out within weeks of each other. In the artsy thriller The Ghost Writer, out in New York and Los Angeles on Feb. 19, Brosnan is a slippery former British prime minister who hires Ewan McGregor to write his memoirs. The film is directed by Roman Polanski, who is under house arrest in Switzerland and is fighting extradition to the United States to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977. After being arrested in September in Switzerland, where he was to attend a film festival, he edited The Ghost Writer while behind bars. "There will be people who say he deserves everything he gets," Brosnan says. "I think forgiveness, compassion, some dignity — he hasn't murdered anyone. What he did was terribly wrong in a time that was terribly wrong in many ways. There's forgiveness on her side. You just hope there's closure for his family and her family. He's a brilliant fellow and a very fractured man in many ways." Fractured aptly describes Brosnan's character, the fictional politico Adam Lang, who is accused of war crimes and being a patsy of the USA. Lang, Brosnan says, is "quite a tragic character. He's an idiot. He must have known at some point that he was a hollow man, a useless fellow, really." For Brosnan, the reason for doing the film was simple: Polanski. Brosnan met Polanski in Paris over lunch during Mamma Mia!'s European promotional tour two years ago. "We talked about this and that, lives, life lost, movies," Brosnan says. "We didn't talk about the motivation of my character or any of the politics." Domestic issues dominate the March 12 drama Remember Me, in which he plays Robert Pattinson's father. "I'd never really played American before, so that was a challenge," Brosnan says. He's a father grieving the death of his son in The Greatest, which he also produced, out April 2. All his roles are different, by design, says Brosnan's producing partner, Beau St. Clair. "Pierce is constantly up for the adventure of the new thing," she says. "He doesn't phone it in. He's very focused on character, on doing something different and unusual and challenging. He keeps a very positive and fresh approach to the work." That meant putting on tights and sporting serious facial hair as a centaur in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lighting Thief, based on the best-selling kids' book series. "I'm sitting on a chair on set going, 'Wow, I'm the oldest one here,' " Brosnan says, chuckling. "How did I get to this place and time?" He has sons, Dylan, 13, and Paris, 8, to thank (Brosnan also has a son, Sean, 29, from his first marriage, to Australian actress Cassandra Harris, who died of cancer in 1991). "When my boys heard that my agent sent me Percy Jackson, I sat down with them that night. We talked about it, and they said I had to do it," he says. What did they think of the movie? "My 8-year-old said, 'Dad, this is the best film you've ever made.' " His wife, Keely Shaye Smith, 46, also gave his rather hirsute look the thumbs up. "She just loved it, actually. She's a clever woman and keeps her own counsel. Months later I'll find out," Brosnan says. Smith stayed in Los Angeles to deal with the family's other endeavor: their new, eco-friendly house. "She's a remarkable woman and has been an environmentalist since the day she was born," Brosnan says.
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Post by Ace on Feb 19, 2010 3:47:55 GMT -5
www.dailynews.com/moviesandtv/ci_14429557L.A. daily News: Pierce Brosnan, prime minister and 'horse's ass'By Rob Lowman, Staff Writer Updated: 02/18/2010 1 Of the four movies coming out in the next two months for Pierce Brosnan, he plays grieving fathers in two, a prime minister in one and then, as he says, a "horse's ass" in the fourth. The last refers to "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," which opened last weekend to $38.8 million, where the former James Bond has dual roles as a professor in the modern world and a centaur in the ancient world (hence the "horse's ass"). In "The Ghost Writer," which opens Friday in limited release, Brosnan takes on the role of slick former British prime minister, Adam Lang, who has hired a writer (Ewan McGregor) to finish his autobiography after another ghost writer has mysteriously died. The roles are a "bagatelle of goodies" says the 56-year-old actor, looking trim and suave enough to jump into the role of 007 again. Brosnan says he studied the mannerisms of both former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative Party leader David Cameron for "The Ghost Writer." "Yes, I see the performance (in politicians)," says the Irish-born Brosnan. "They have to seduce the people. They have to manipulate. "Some of them have the greatest sincerity mindset, but you see them work it. You feel it. We're so used to it now because of the camera, because of TV, because we all see behind the curtain, because of reality shows, because it's our own psychoanalysis." Brosnan was in London when he received a call from the Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, whose well-known legal troubles have kept him in Europe for more than 30 years. (He is currently under house arrest in Switzerland.) The actor took the train to Paris to meet with the director. A longtime fan of Polanski, citing early films such as "Chinatown," "Knife in the Water" and "Rosemary's Baby," Brosnan says he doesn't know why the director cast him in the film. "An Irishman playing an ex-British prime minister, but then again I have played James Bond and that has its own sweet irony." Since Polanski never left Europe, a German island near Poland doubled for Martha's Vineyard, where most of the film is set. Shooting was also done in Berlin, while a second unit was sent to London so McGregor could be filmed in the streets. Brosnan says watching the 76-year-old director work was a treat. "It was amazing working with him. He was always a hard taskmaster, a perfectionist. He has a fierce passion for filmmaking, and it is still connected to his artistic life. He sat beside the camera, and you don't get that anymore; so there was this real intimacy between us as actors and the director." The two agreed his character in "Ghost Writer" - which was adapted from the Robert Harris novel - wouldn't be based solely on Blair. However, the former Liberal Party prime minister is currently being dogged by an Iraq War inquiry, and in the movie Lang is being accused of war crimes, allowing torture; so the parallels for audiences will seem stronger. "Lang is a charismatic man but yet a puppet, somewhat of a populist who's in an extreme vortex of crisis at this time in his life," Brosnan notes. "There's a certain comedic element to this prime minister and a certain sadness to it. He knows it's a sham and he's been caught in this web of dissembling his own life. So I thought he was a good character to play starting with the premise of being an actor who gets caught up in this world of politics. He can go out and read a great speech, and play a great speech but doesn't have the true grit of politics or life." "The Ghost Writer" recently premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, where the Hollywood Reporter said about the actor's performance as Lang, "Brosnan gets the politician's arrogance perfectly as well as the duplicity lurking so close under the surface." An outspoken environmentalist, Brosnan, who lives in Malibu, has dealt with some real politicians to further that cause and others. "I've encountered a few up on Capitol Hill for nuclear disarmament. I've tried to rattle the cage of our Gov. Schwarzenegger for the old-growth trees." Brosnan became an American citizen in September 2004 so he could vote John Kerry against George W. Bush. "Five years ago, I couldn't stand by and not have a vote in this wonderful country that has been good to me and embraced me and given me a home and work." The actor and his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, are raising two sons - Dylan, 13 and Paris, 8. Brosnan has another grown son and two stepsons from his first marriage to Cassandra Harris, who died of ovarian cancer in 1991. For the moment, Brosnan will continue making films with the production company he began a dozen years ago. Over the years its turned out hits with "Evelyn," "The Thomas Crown Affair" and the comedic thriller "The Matador" for which Brosnan received a Golden Globe nomination as an alcoholic hitman. "I like producing, finding the material, working on that, putting the people together." One of the father roles he has taken on is in "The Greatest," about an affluent couple whose lives have been shattered when their oldest son is killed in a car crash and a young woman appears claiming that she is carrying their son's baby. "To get Carey Mulligan (the Oscar nominee who plays the young woman) and Susan Sarandon (who plays his wife), that I found exhilarating, gratifying. To find the young director like Shana Feste was great." The other father role is in a family tragedy "Remember Me," where Brosnan plays the father to "Twilight's" Robert Pattinson's estranged son. Up next for the ever-busy Brosnan is the indie film "Salvation Boulevard," which is supposed to start shooting in April. In the comedy, "I play a preacher of the mega-church and Greg Kinnear is my disciple and I'm going to help them find God." And though the actor wouldn't have minded doing a few more comedies throughout his career, the former Bond isn't ruling out jumping back into action films, the spy game in particular. "I think there may be one - maybe two - in there. I have a piece I really like ... . The script has come in and it's good - it falls in the realm of Bond and Bourne." "I'll be working until I'm 90," he says, laughing. ================================== With the article PHOTO GALLERY Photos by Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer dailynews.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=947116&CategoryID=26371&ListSubAlbums=0[15 photos - but one of the poorest shoots with the photographer seemingly trying to make it interesting by having have the photos blurry and the other half in high contrast - I think only 2 or 3 are good]
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Post by madsen92 on Feb 19, 2010 16:34:16 GMT -5
I get this paper and I have to say it's one of the lesser shoots he's done. I don't think the photographer knew what he or she was doing, still a great article though.
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Post by Ace on Feb 20, 2010 16:38:49 GMT -5
entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article7032106.ece From The Sunday Times
February 21, 2010
Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer: Pierce Brosnan on the ghosts that haunt himAfter the fun of Mamma Mia!, Pierce Brosnan plays a prime minister accused of war crimes in Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer. He talks about the eerie parallels between his film life and his real life.Chrissy Iley Pierce Brosnan has a voice from nowhere. Not Ireland, not England, not America. He’s tall, tactile, twinkling-eyed, open. But it’s the voice that I’m wrapped up in. It’s most spectacularly affecting when playing Adam Lang, a not-so-fictional former British Labour prime minister accused of war crimes, in The Ghost Writer — a film version of Robert Harris’s thriller The Ghost — directed by Roman Polanski. Robert Harris was once enamoured of Tony Blair, but became disillusioned. His book is bitter, but the Polanski film goes one step further. It is menacing. There are many shadowy parallels. Adam Lang’s wife is dark-haired, protective, ferocious and unliked. Lang is a clever communicator, but a man of little substance, charming and over-familiar. The ghost of the title is not the loyal Scottish chief of staff who has mysteriously died, but the character played by Ewan McGregor, the ghostwriter of Lang’s autobiography. The film follows the hack writer as he struggles to bring heart to Lang’s leaden account of his premiership. The men are holed up in a mansion in Martha’s Vineyard in the US, trying to meet a publishing deadline as the former prime minister is charged with war crimes. Lang, we are led to believe, is a man who knows what to say to win people over, but doesn’t really understand the depth of what he is saying. He is pro-American, charmingly shallow, with edge and confidence. I watched the film almost back-to-back with watching Tony Blair on the news at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. Brosnan brought the twin qualities of ambiguity and sincerity to Adam Lang, and these seem to me to be the exact qualities that defined Blair as he answered questions about the invasion of Iraq. Brosnan, as Lang, makes you feel sympathetic, despite his evident pomposity. How did he arrive at his interpretation? “Early on we established it wasn’t going to be Blair, in that it wasn’t going to be an impersonation, but there would be an echo, a resemblance, an essence. I looked at a lot of Tony. I also looked at Cameron. I listened to tapes. There’s a mixture of buffoonery and sincerity. You notice the brilliance of that sincerity.” But what about the over-sincerity and the over-familiarity, the fact that your character calls everybody “man”? “I had real trouble saying ‘man’ because it’s such a strange thing to say. I wasn’t trying to imitate Blair, but I looked at photos, particularly of Tony’s mouth. His mouth is strange.” He demonstrates the way Blair pulls his lips over his teeth and sucks them in a bit. The mouth turns in on itself. “The tension that man must be enduring right now. To be drawn back centre stage and to have the knives out,” he says. “The character of Lang was a student at Cambridge where he was an actor and he wanted to bonk every bird and have a good time, but he meets this woman who grooms him. Is that just a hollow man? There is a sadness to this man asking for his wife’s help. I liked playing him.” Do you think George W Bush seduced Blair? “I’m not sure if it was Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. Bush certainly had a huge influence. When you are in a war with these kind of men who are powerful and there’s an accumulation of wanting to do the right thing and wanting to be seen as a hero… then comes guilt and shame and fear. But I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I’m just an actor. It’s a good script though, and it’s got a man behind the camera whose vision is always laser-like, articulate and powerful. Robert Harris has written a good-old page turner. But when you see what Roman has done to it… there’s that little touch of evil, of the macabre, and of loneliness.” How did he get on with Polanski? “I liked him a lot, an awful lot. I first met him in Paris. We had lunch. He was charming and witty and warm. We talked about the loss of wives, of life, death, dying and grief. Just a normal conversation.” In our conversation we talk about death many times. Brosnan’s first wife, the Australian actress Cassandra Harris, who was renowned for being strong, loyal, loving and brave, died from ovarian cancer in 1991. For a while it was a tragedy that defined him, in a way that Polanski was once defined by the loss of his wife, Sharon Tate, who was murdered by followers of the cult figure Charles Manson when she was 8Å months pregnant. Public feelings of sympathy for the director were later replaced by shock, when eight years later, in 1977, it was alleged that Polanski had sex with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. Brosnan will not comment on this aspect of Polanski’s life, though he acknowledges the darkness in his direction. The lurid incident took place at Jack Nicholson’s house on Mulholland Drive where Polanski had told Geimer’s mother he wanted to take pictures of her for a model shoot. The original charges were shocking, including committing a lewd act on a person under 14, rape of a minor, rape by use of a drug, oral copulation and sodomy. These were later reduced to unlawful sexual intercourse with an underage girl, but the judge reneged on the deal, and Polanski faced up to half a century incarcerated in California. So in 1978 he fled to France, where there is no extradition agreement. The law caught up with him last September on a trip to Switzerland, where he is now under house arrest and fighting extradition to the US. Brosnan is hugely sympathetic to Polanski’s predicament and admiring that the whole movie was edited from his cell. But he’s also sad for him. “Why did they not bring him in sooner if they are intent on getting him? I don’t know why they want to rake all of this up now.” What does he think attracted Polanski to the film? Where are the parallels between The Ghost Writer and Polanski’s own life? “The austerity of the stories are similar. The helicopters outside the window, the hounds at the door. A chalet. Living out of your own country. Incarceration.” It’s the parallels that perhaps make Polanski’s film particularly haunting. Lang is a condemned man struggling to rewrite his place in history, and so is Polanski. “How had this happened to him at this time of life and why now? The timing was spooky. The movie was in the can and he was in the can.” Brosnan delivers the line deadpan. “He edited the movie from his cell. They would give him the tapes, then he would edit the tapes and give them to the warden who would give them to his attorney who would give them to whoever was next in line so the work could be done. He worked well.” Perhaps it gave him an edge; he put all that seclusion and claustrophobia into the film. “Yes, I think so. I don’t think this has ever happened in the history of film, that you have a director who is incarcerated. “Roman was very forthcoming about the loss of Sharon. She’s still the light in his life. We talked about her and about movies that we liked.” Brosnan still appears to be surprised by his own career trajectory: “The last person I expected to work with was Polanski. Although before that, the last thing I expected to do was Mamma Mia! But that’s the joy of being an actor and what keeps you alive. “My first day was a baptism of fire. I looked at the schedule and it seemed fairly easy. I thought, this is great. Easy days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Friday is a big day. I was in Berlin unpacking my bags, putting away my smalls when the phone rings and it’s Roman.” Brosnan does a wonderfully bumbling Polish- accented Polanski. “Pierce, we miss you, we want to see you. Do you mind on Monday if we do that airplane scene?” He straightens himself back into Brosnan. For Polanski he crouched over to look hunched. “That was a 6-page scene and the most difficult. Overnight I drive four hours up to Usedom [an island in the Baltic Sea] near the Polish border, and find myself sitting there ready to be prime minister. The first day of work is always terrifying. “We did the scene with Ewan in Polanski’s motor home. He said, ‘Very good, excellent.’ I knew the lines. I’d learnt the whole darn text. So we get into the hangar. The plane is just a fuselage. I have my secretaries and bodyguards and we rehearse the scene and he says, ‘Very good.’ For the next four hours he goes through props — the gun, the secretaries, the laptops. I’m thinking, ‘When are we going to shoot?’ Then it’s five to one. He puts his camera hand up and says, ‘Pierce, after lunch, the 27 lens.’ That’s a very big lens. But I go back to my trailer. I couldn’t eat. I was too nervous. That’s what’s so difficult about film work. You have to be ready, then somebody else isn’t. You have to stay focused. “We came back after lunch and everything was ready. We shot the movie at Babelsberg Studios in Berlin and also up in Usedom. It’s where the Germans made bombs that they flew into Britain. All the bunkers are still there and they built the façade of the house. That was supposed to be Martha’s Vineyard. They wanted bad weather, they got bad weather.” Brosnan talks of Polanski’s direction with awe. Brosnan has his own production company, Irish Dreamtime, and at one point it was said that he might turn to directing as well as producing. He has always had a strong visual sense and all his life has painted, particularly in dark times. He is vague about his desire to direct, but says he has certainly learnt from Polanski. “The lens was never far from his hand. I sat on the back of the camera one day watching close-ups of Ewan. His viewfinder was burnished with time, the numbers were worn away and they were all pencilled in on bits of gaffer tape. You looked through the lens and you could hardly see. You wondered if you were in focus. He’d be setting the camera up and having a private conversation with himself. You’d be going for the take and he’d be, ‘No, no, stop, no,’ and then, ‘Give me the camera, I want the camera, the f***ing camera.’ He could freak some people out. But that was his passion.” There is no doubt that Brosnan is having a renaissance. He last played Bond in 2002 and has not stopped working since. He is currently filming a sequel to the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair. But it was Mamma Mia! that captured the imagination, showing his versatility. He is also appearing as Chiron the centaur in the children’s fantasy film Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief, and a grieving father in The Greatest. He doesn’t see it as a period of transition. “It’s been wonderful getting into my character days as an actor. In Percy Jackson I play a horse’s arse. Let’s get that said straight away. I’ll probably be living with this for ever.” He shakes his head. As one who falls too easily into darkness, the fantasy of Percy Jackson was good for him. Was it hard to play a horse? “It was hard to look butch on a set with a bunch of young men who were buffed and girls who were gorgeous in leather breastplates, and you’re standing 12ft tall on green fluorescent painted stilts in tights.” Brosnan had learnt circus skills as a young actor. He was born in Navan, County Meath, Ireland. His father, Tom Brosnan, left when he was two and his mother took a decision that was normal for those days: financially, she couldn’t cope, so she went to London to train as a nurse and sent money home for her son, who was looked after by grandparents and then an aunt. When he was 11 she was stable enough to send for him. He went first to Elliott Comprehensive in Putney and later the Drama Centre in London. He loved his stepfather, Bill Carmichael, and was happy at home, but school was an upheaval. The other kids mocked his accent. So he modified it to become the accent from nowhere, so he would fit in. He became someone else. That was where the acting began. What also began was a desire never to have a relationship like his parents, which had been volatile and sometimes violent. His childhood had been dislocated and lonely. He wanted to love and be loved and for it to stay like that. He lost his birth father, Tom Brosnan, long before that, but he never refers to Tom as dad and always gives him his full name, Tom Brosnan. “We only met once when I was 30 or 31. I was filming Remington Steele in Ireland. “The meeting was ordained, planned. I was staying with my late wife and Sean, our youngest, had just been born. So it was about 26 years ago. Tom was a stranger coming through a door. There were similarities in our features. The same squinty flinty eyes. It was an awkward yet tender meeting. I had a cup of tea. I regret not meeting him in a pub. It would have been more relaxed. “There was a resentment and a childish, churlish, ‘Well, it’s taken you all these years. Why didn’t you find me before now?’ When I went downstairs I met my cousins who had travelled by minibus up from Tralee and I waved them all goodbye. Two years after that I was in Thailand on a picture and someone said, ‘Did you get that phone call last night about your dad.’ I said, ‘Do you mean Bill?’ They said, ‘No, Tom Brosnan. He’s dead.’ I was okay with it, but there was regret, sadness — should have, could have, didn’t. “Bill passed away a couple of years ago. I was in Berlin and my wife, Keely, said I should fly over to London to see him because he’s getting on. He’d been a diabetic all his life, but my mother is a nurse, so she took care of him. He was 85 and he was sick. He went into hospital on Monday and died at the end of the week. “When we were organising his funeral, I said there should be bagpipes as he was a wonderful Scotsman. I went outside for a quiet cigarette and the phone rang. It was my agent. He said we’ve got a movie for you, Mamma Mia! It’s with Meryl Streep and it’s in Greece. I said, how much? I’m in. The next night I took my mother and stepchildren, Charlotte and Christopher, to see the stage production of Mamma Mia! in London. I thought, ‘What have I done? This is so schmaltzy. Oh dear, oh dear.’ I forgot to ask who I was playing. One of the dads. I could be playing the gay dad or this rugged guy, then this other guy came out and said, ‘My name’s Sam Carmichael,’ and I thought, ‘There you go, that’s me.’ ” It thrilled him to play a character with the same surname as his beloved stepfather. In the film, the Meryl Streep character has kept Carmichael’s bagpipes as a memento. Brosnan kept these bagpipes after filming to give to his own mother because they were covered in Carmichael tartan. He has two movies coming out where he plays the father of a dead son. One, Remember Me, is with Robert Pattinson. It is a love story, not a vampire story. His production company made The Greatest with Susan Sarandon and the new British star and Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, in which she plays the pregnant girlfriend of Brosnan’s son who has died in a car crash. His producing partner had to really persuade him because it was a difficult subject. His own son, Sean, was 16 when he almost died in a car accident in 2000. “I carry these memories, these echoes, even though Sean did recover. The crash was about seven years ago. He was crushed, thrown. He went off a cliff in Malibu, 270ft. We’d all had dinner that night. At 4am I got the call. There was this voice going, ‘Please, please, please. I’ve really f***ed up.’ One of the boys had crawled up a mountain with a mobile phone. If he hadn’t, my boy would have been dead. “Everybody else was okay, but he was crushed, pelvis, bones, everything. I found myself screaming down Pacific Coast Highway at 90mph into the back mountains and I saw the helicopter in the sky and the fire engines and the ambulance. I stood there looking into the abyss. A fireman said, ‘There are six victims, one critical.’ They took me down the dirt trail. The back of the ambulance was open. Five boys were bloody and cut, and shell-shocked. And my boy came up on a board and they put us in a helicopter. The boy who was driving was drunk.” Did you ever speak to him again? “No. He went to prison.” Is he still there? “No, he got out,” he says with a throaty sigh. He folds his arms in front of him. “It was shocking. When the script came along I thought, let’s go there, let’s see. After many months and many surgeries Sean is a handsome, passionate, lovely 26-year-old. He’s an actor. He looks like me. He’s got the flinty squinty eyes the old man Tom had and he’s got the beauty of his mum, Cassie, as well.” When Cassandra was dying Brosnan gave up work almost completely to nurse her at home. She died in his arms the day after their 11th wedding anniversary. It’s been said that for years after she died he would talk to her every day. Does he still? He falters. “We talk about her. I am blessed with my wife, Keely, who has always been remarkably kind and compassionate. Cassie is remembered with great love, remembered dearly. Keely has always accommodated that, and we have now been together 17 years. You know, I have the luck of the Irish.” Some might call it unlucky. “No. I’ve had great luck in finding a partner…” You must have thought you were never going to find one again. “Cancer is a hard one to live with. To see someone suffer for four years, when the moment comes it’s a relief that the suffering has gone. It’s very hard to talk about death with somebody, but one day she said, ‘It doesn’t look good for me.’ We held each other and wept and had a cup of tea. A cup of tea always sorts things out, and then you sort out your priorities, which in my case was the children. Our son Sean, and Charlotte and Christopher [Cassandra’s children from an earlier relationship, whom Brosnan adopted].” The older two “rattled and shook for a number of years in their own way, but they are very good now”. This is a passing reference to the drug problems the two have had. “They gave me a few grey hairs, as you can see.” Unlike the ambiguous, evasive prime minister Lang, Brosnan is not ashamed to feel and to show it. That life experience and directness is now proving to be movie gold.
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Post by Ace on Mar 31, 2010 18:45:32 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-brosnan1-2010apr01,0,4579677.story LA Times: Pierce Brosnan seeks to escape James Bond's shadow He figures one way is to keep busy. He is appearing in five films this year.
IT'S BROSNAN, PIERCE BROSNAN: The actor, 56, is appearing in five new films this year, chosen for their diversity of roles. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) By Amy Kaufman April 1, 2010 Pierce Brosnan was sitting on the patio of a Beverly Hills restaurant sipping a beer last week when he was assailed by a gaggle of lively elderly women. "You are gorgeous in person," exclaimed one lady with a thick New York accent who appeared to be in her 80s. "You look spectacular! I just got 20 years younger." "You look gorgeous," Brosnan replied. "Ugh! God, I'm in love. That's James Bond," she said, whispering to her friends as she shuffled away. By the end of the spring, Brosnan, 56, will have appeared in five new films this year -- but to some, he'll always be James Bond. It's been eight years since the release of "Die Another Day," the last of the four films in which Brosnan reprised the iconic role of the unstoppable spy who loves women, fast cars and nifty gadgets. Just as one of his predecessors, Sean Connery, was able to leave behind the Bond role later in his career, Brosnan too is hoping that audiences will eventually be able to see him as more than just the international man of mystery. That effort is reflected in Brosnan's latest spate of work. His most recent film, "The Greatest," on which he also served as a producer, opens Friday and tells the story of a father grappling with the death of his son. It shares in the serious tone of March's "Remember Me," in which he was embattled in a different kind of father-son relationship with teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson. There has also been Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," in which Brosnan played an emotionally distant former prime minister, as well as his less dramatic turn as a bearded centaur in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Later this month, he'll serve as the narrator on the environmental documentary "Oceans." The diversity in projects was a conscious choice, said Brosnan, who was dressed immaculately in a crisp button-up and blazer with nary a crease. His face too was virtually without wrinkles -- his hair, peppered with just a hint of gray, was the only sign of his age. "I said to my agents, 'Look, it's time to really work, and to find and explore other avenues here as an actor,' " he explained. "It doesn't have to be leading roles. Let's not be tripped up by past information. It's time to try and have longevity as an actor." It was a move that surprised even the director of "The Greatest," 33-year-old Shana Feste. "Initially, we never thought we could get someone like Pierce, with me as a first-time director on a low-budget film. It was the jackpot of actors for us," said Feste. "You associate him with Bond and this very GQ, slick, sexy persona, but he's actually a real chameleon and I don't think mainstream audiences have seen that yet." In reality, Brosnan has been distancing himself from that image since one of his first big post-Bond roles, 2005's "The Matador," for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for his turn as an eccentric, burned-out hit man. "At the time, I was definitely still very connected to the image and the history of Bond," he said. "Even when I was in it. It just lives with you. It permeates your life. And you know that going in, but the reality of it -- the overcoat is really large, and can be quite heavy at times. So you have to break the shackles of that." Greg Kinnear, who also starred in "Matador" and will play opposite Brosnan again in the upcoming "Salvation Boulevard," described the role as "the best thing that could have happened" to Brosnan. "I was sitting there watching this man painting his toenails purple and be completely fearless," he said. "I don't think he was even consciously reinventing himself. I just think of him more as a character actor than as a franchise player." Brosnan began exploring his passion for the arts as a teenager in England (where his Irish Catholic family moved when he was 11). After leaving school at 16, he found a home at the Oval House Theatre, then an English arts lab. "I had a romantic notion of being in the movies, but the reality was in finding an education for myself and finding an articulation of speech and passion for myself as an actor," he said. To help find that identity, Brosnan enrolled at the Drama Centre in South London. After leaving, he landed work with such acclaimed directors as Tennessee Williams and Franco Zeffirelli. Then in 1981, he and his wife, Cassandra Harris (who died of ovarian cancer in 1991) took out a second mortgage on their Wimbeldon home to afford a move to the U.S. A year later, Brosnan landed a role on the NBC detective series "Remington Steele," which would run until 1987 and make him an American star. "I was trained and led to believe, as a young actor out of drama school, that I could play anything," he said. "And you come to America and find yourself in a TV series -- which I am forever grateful for because it allowed me to have the career that I've got -- but I never expected to be branded so. Or to be pigeon-holed." He's tried to separate his identity from his more recognized screen personas in part by forming his own production company, Irish DreamTime, in 1996, for which he's overseen eight films, with more in the pipeline. "The company was also a good way to take things that might not come down the stretch," said Beau St. Clair, a partner in the company. "You can create new avenues for yourself because this town is so much like, if you play an assassin, you get assassin scripts. You've gotta keep going, 'Oh, no, look over here, see this? I can do this.' " Ewan McGregor, Brosnan's costar in "The Ghost Writer," said he admires the actor's exploration. "I like what Pierce has done since he's left Bond," McGregor said. "He's really playing interesting roles and characters we haven't seen him play before. I think he's enjoying a real golden age." But Brosnan, who is remarried and has five kids, three from his first marriage and two boys with his current wife, bristles at the thought that to some -- like the group of women who had passed by earlier -- he's a movie star. Instead, he opts to describe himself as a working actor. "Movie star? Clint [Eastwood] is a movie star. Jack [Nicholson] is a movie star," he said. "If I'm called a movie star, then great. I certainly wanted to be one. I dreamt about it, in my own quiet way. I definitely have played the leading man, but I also see myself as a character actor -- a working actor. It just fits me well. It gives me a grounding."
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Post by Ace on Apr 2, 2010 14:59:31 GMT -5
NY Magazine: Pierce Brosnan on Playing Another Grieving Dad, Acting in the Water, and When We’ll See a Thomas Crown Affair SequelApril 2, 2010 By: Mina Hochberg Pierce Brosnan will always be synonymous with James Bond and Remington Steele, but the Irish-born actor has since parlayed his alpha maleness into more subdued roles, including a Golden Globe–nominated turn as a burned-out hit man in The Matador. In The Greatest, which opens today, Brosnan plays a college professor who finds emotional salvation in the pregnant girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) of his dead teenage son. Brosnan, who also produced the film, talked with us about the trials of emoting underwater and acting in Percy Jackson on stilts. This film has been on quite a journey since it premiered at Sundance last year. Was it a shock when your distributor went kaput after you secured an opening date?Yes, it was a shock. But in the climate of last year, everything was falling apart around everyone’s lives. It didn’t really surprise me and it didn’t alarm me. I had confidence that we would find another distributor and find a home for the film. As a father yourself, how hard was it to play a parent who loses a child? Did you ever hesitate about taking on the movie?I read the script and thought it was really well-founded, but I threw it under the bed and said let’s just put this away. It’s too hard, too tricky. But eventually I dug it out and I read it quietly and it was so moving. … Susan [Sarandon], I knew, was interested, so I called her up and said, “I’m gonna make the movie and I’d love you to be a part of it. Let’s go make it in New York. We’ll come to you.” So we had this great actress and then found Carey [Mulligan]. You have a moving moment with Susan Sarandon in the ocean, in which you're really getting pushed and pulled by the waves. Was it difficult to shoot such an emotional scene when water was going up your nostrils?In circumstances like that, you just follow your heart. It’s very hard to choreograph something like that. You’re at the mercy of the elements, the waves in this case, and it adds to the emotional turmoil of what these characters are going through. It was a tricky day’s work. We had so much work to do that day, trying to get photographs to float correctly and make sure people kept their clothes on. You mean in the water?In the water. Clothes kept getting knocked off?It’s just, you don’t want to be completely disrobed or inelegant. Out of all the roles we’ve seen you in this year — a centaur [Percy Jackson and the Olympians], a prime minister [The Ghost Writer], and the two grieving fathers [Remember Me and The Greatest] — which one was the most challenging?I think they’re all challenging in their own ways. In Percy Jackson, you’re a centaur, you’re up on stilts, you’re in blue CGI tights. You’re trying to keep your dignity as this wise professor and you’re hoping you don’t fall off your stilts and make a complete fool of yourself in front of 200 beautiful and virile young people. Prime minister is a tricky role to walk, [deciding if you’re] playing [Tony] Blair or not playing Blair. They all have their challenges. Since Remington Steele was your first major role, do you think it ended up being a formative experience for you?It certainly created a style and pigeonholed me into that kind of genre of the suave, sophisticated, debonair character. You run with that for a while and then you try to break out of the mold. But it’s been a very lucrative line of work for me. How attached do you feel to the James Bond franchise? If you see a headline in a newspaper about James Bond, are you curious?No, I’m always curious to hear what’s going on and to see headlines about Bond and what they’re going to do next. It was a big part of my life and I’m very proud of the fact that the movies I made were very successful and we relaunched the series. I have the greatest pride in that time. I read that you have a personal note from Tennessee Williams from when you performed in one of his plays. What does it say?It’s in my office at home and it says, “Thank God for you, my dear boy. Love, Tennessee Williams.” It’s a brilliant note. It’s a telegram. It’s a thing of the past. 1977. I know you’re still gunning for a Thomas Crown sequel. What's happening with that?It’s still there. We have the script and we’re just trying to deal with MGM so that they can get their act together and we can go make it.
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Post by SecondWind on Apr 6, 2010 16:43:30 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Apr 7, 2010 13:42:30 GMT -5
I thought it was a bit weird too. As if the author had a "theme" and wanted all answers and info to support it. But at least it's a "different" spin.
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Post by Ace on Apr 17, 2010 15:54:22 GMT -5
Venice Magazine: PIERCE BROSNAN AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME APRIL 2010 BY MARJORIE LEWIS PHOTOGRAPHY GREG GORMAN It’s a gorgeous Malibu day and I’m sitting in the lobby of a luxury beachfront hotel, gazing out the window at a sky so blue and perfect it takes my breath away, and then he walks in. The blue eyes trump the sky in color and intensity, and seem to literally twinkle. The familiar, chiseled face that has stared back at me from the large and small screen is still gorgeous at 56, and although he’s not wearing a tux — and is in fact dressed “Malibu casual” — there is an air of urbane elegance that clings to him like a second skin. There is star quality and then there is movie-star quality and let me tell you, folks, there is a very big difference. Although there are lots of good-looking men in Malibu and vicinity, as well as plenty of good-looking actors all over Southern California, there is only one Pierce Brosnan. As we settle into our booth in the dining room, the previously unflappable concierge blushes to the roots of her hairline and the waitress’s hands tremble as she takes our order. The once quiet room seems to hum with the whispers of the “ladies who lunch,” who have begun to notice his arrival. This is a man who by the very act of entering a room can turn women of all ages into sighing, whimpering masses of jellylike substance, and he’s been doing it for over 25 years. That’s movie-star quality, and Pierce Brosnan has tons of it. He is also funny, charming, self-deprecating, and honest, and I’m proud to say he’s been my friend for many years. This is our first interview together and I’d love to be “unbiased” here, but the fact is I adore him. He’s a brilliant artist, an amazing human being, and he’ll always and forever be my favorite James Bond, because... nobody does it better. Brosnan was born in Ireland on May 16, 1953, and moved to England at age 11. His father left the household when Pierce was a child and he was raised by his mother, May, and his stepfather, Bill. At age 20, Brosnan began training at the Drama Centre in London. After several years of stage work throughout the U.K., he began to work in television and film. He appeared in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), in which he played an IRA hitman, and in The Mirror Crack’d (1980). He also played small parts in various British TV programs. His work in the popular 1981 ABC mini-series, “The Manions of America,” brought him to the attention of American audiences. In 1982, Brosnan moved to Southern California and quickly became famous playing the title role in the NBC detective series, “Remington Steele.” When that series ended in 1987, Brosnan went on to appear in several screen projects, including The Fourth Protocol (1987), The Deceivers, and James Clavell’s NBC miniseries, “Noble House” (both in 1988), and The Lawnmower Man (1992). In 1993, Brosnan starred along with Robin Williams and Sally Field in Mrs. Doubtfire. In 1994, amidst much fanfare, Pierce Brosnan was unveiled as “the new Bond.” In the several years that followed, Brosnan starred as the suave secret agent in GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999), and Die Another Day (2002). Together, his four Bond films have grossed over $1.6 billion worldwide. In 1996, Brosnan, along with his producing partner, Beau St. Clair, created a Los Angelesbased production company and named it Irish DreamTime. The company’s first film, The Nephew (1998), shot in Ireland, featured Brosnan in a small supporting role. Next up was Irish DreamTime’s first studio project, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), which was both a critical and box-office success. A sequel is currently in development at MGM. Brosnan played in a wide range of films in between his Bond duties, ranging from Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!, to The Mirror Has Two Faces alongside Barbra Streisand (both in 1996), to Dante’s Peak (1997), and the title role in Grey Owl (1999), a biopic about Englishman Archibald Stansfeld Belaney who became one of Canada’s first conservationists. In 1997, Brosnan was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Brosnan’s first post-Bond role was in 2004’s Laws of Attraction, produced by Irish DreamTime. That same year, Brosnan starred in After the Sunset with Salma Hayek. For his star turn as Julian in his company’s production of The Matador (2005), Brosnan received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture. He also worked in the Civil War drama, Seraphim Falls (2007), and in 2008 starred opposite Meryl Streep in the smash-hit film adaptation of the Broadway hit, Mamma Mia! Brosnan has homes in Malibu and Kauai where he lives happily with his second wife, former TV correspondent, Keely Shaye Smith, and their two young sons, Dylan and Paris. He also has three grown children from his first marriage to the former “Bond girl” Cassandra Harris, who passed away in 1991. This spring, Brosnan will begin production on a new film titled Salvation Boulevard, based on a novel of the same name, written by Larry Beinhart. The story follows a former Deadhead-turned-born-again-Christian, who finds himself on the run from fundamentalist members of his mega-church, who will do anything to protect their larger-than-life pastor, played by Brosnan. The film also stars Greg Kinnear, Ed Harris, Marisa Tomei, Jim Gaffigan, and Jennifer Connelly, and will be directed by George Ratliff. In Shana Feste’s new drama, The Greatest, Brosnan and Susan Sarandon play parents who are grieving for their teenaged son, who was killed in a car accident. It’s a grueling part, and one that Brosnan felt a special kinship with, as he too has experienced grief, not just over the loss of his first wife, but also as a result of almost losing their son, Sean, in a serious accident several years ago. Here’s what transpired... Venice: You’re terrific in The Greatest, and there are three other films you’ve done in the last year or so — Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Remember Me, and The Ghost Writer. It seems like they’re all being released around the same time. How did that happen?Pierce Brosnan: I’m so proud of The Greatest. I woke up this morning with an air of contentment and thought how happy I am with how well it turned out now that it’s finally being released. You know we did The Greatest two years ago; we sold it then and the company that bought it [to distribute] kind of collapsed. Then Paladin picked us up and kept us going. It looks like I have been working back-to-back, but there’s been some time in between films. I did Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and you know I played a horse’s ass. [laughs] [Editor’s note: he played a centaur.] I did that for my kids; it’s a great franchise and I love it. Then I went into Mr. Polanski’s world for Ghost Writer, and after that I did Remember Me. That’s the order in which things happened. How does an actor of your stature decide to work with a first-time director, who also happens to be female, on such a small, intimate film?I have fallen in love with this woman [filmmaker Shana Feste]. Her writing was so simple in its narrative and yet complex in its emotions. She poured her heart into it, she really did, and based on how well she’d written the story and the characters, I thought she’d know how to point a camera — and if she doesn’t, I’ll tell her how. [laughs] And of course we had hired the great [cinematographer] John Bailey, and once we got him as the DP, I mean he’s one of the grand masters of cinematography. Plus, Shana’s take on Ordinary People was a solid blueprint to emulate for our film. I thought if we can make something as good and as beautiful as that film was all those years ago, well, then, yes. Then I heard Susan Sarandon was interested and that filled me with confidence. I called her up and left a voice message that said, “Look Susan, Shana’s just left my office and I like this project. I think it’s great and I hear you might want to do it. If you agree to do the film, we’ll come to you, we’ll shoot it in New York, and you and I will get to play together and hang out for a while. Why not?” She called me right back and she said, “You got me at ‘why not?’” You wear two hats. How do you merge the actor point of view with the job of the producer? At some point, does the actor read a script that he likes and the producer says, “I don’t think so,” or vice versa?I don’t think of it as two hats, really. I tend to come to it with the emotion and the intuition of an actor. First and foremost I consider myself a working actor. Then I ask the producer- type questions. How much? What’s the package? Where’s the location? How long will the shoot take? How hard will it be? Then you hire the team and hope you don’t get any screamers and shouters; the goal is to surround yourself with good people you admire and respect. You create a haven from that, where you allow yourself to do your best work and have fun. And Beau [producing partner Beau St. Clair] is such a great mate and very talented at what she does, and I always feel so secure with her. I feel like we can do anything. On the films you produce, you’re in charge of the film as a whole. How is it different when you go into a project where you are simply an actor for hire and you’re not the boss of anything? You’re just “the guy.”I’ve been “just the guy” all my life. [laughs] I just show up and do it. You know your lines, you keep reading the material, move it around in your head, work on it, dream about it, read it and read it, and think about it. When you’re into the domain of, say, Roman Polanski, it’s an exotic and beautiful and amazing space. He’s a taskmaster; he can be a little ... [laughs] you know he’s a wee man, quite short, but Roman walks like he’s six-foot-five. God, and he can be intimidating. But you’re there to work and you get on with it. I do love that movie [The Ghost Writer], and I am happy for all the accolades it’s received, great reviews and all that. You actually read the reviews? Most actors I know do not.I try to stay away from them. There’s a woman from the NY Times, Manohla Dargis; a couple of years ago she cut me to ribbons and kicked me to the ground. I thought, “Wow, you cruel bitch.” [laughs] That particular review was something where she was celebrating someone else and I became the by-product of, “Thank goodness he’s being kicked off this franchise.” It hurt; I admit it. So when her review of Ghost Writer came out, I read it and thought, “Oh, okay. I’ll send you a Christmas card. I love you again.” I’m guessing that review you’re talking about had to do with the Bond movies. Yet it appears to me that once you stopped playing Bond, it opened the doors to doing a wider variety of roles as an actor.Yes, I was free. When you are in the restraints of “Bond,” you are in that world. They have you hook, line, and sinker. They have every part of you and that always rankled my head and my heart. But the celebration and excitement of playing such a role was really something very good. It’s just, “How do you get out of it?” At what point did you get tired of playing James Bond?I remember starting the first day on that film [ Tomorrow Never Dies] in an aircraft, flying a jet, an F-16 fighter plane, and it was 102 degrees and I’m wearing a helmet and sweater, and then I’m being strangled over and over again and I thought, “Oh my God, this bloody character is going to kill me.” The press tour for that film was 22 countries. When I did it I knew the movie wasn’t up to speed; it wasn’t as good as GoldenEye and you have to bang the drum loudly to get the attention. And yet there is no doubt you came out of the whole “Bond” experience as a better actor. And you’re definitely in demand. How do you explain that?A better actor? I don’t know if I could say that, but there is a maturity, there’s a gravitas, and this is what I do. I’m as energized now as I was at 25 about the game of acting. I crack the whip with the agents and I say, “Guys, don’t put me up on a pedestal. Let’s be honest about where we are at here, for my career. I have to work and want to work and I love to work, so find me the good stuff. Let’s spread our wings here. Take it that I can do anything, I can play anything, be anything. Let’s start with that.” And do you feel you’ve proven that with the “post-Bond” work?It’s been a nice workout, like at the gym. It’s been repertory theater; a bit of this, a bit of that. I just want to shake myself up and to work. Doing The Greatest for me was like a workshop. You get a good script and a bit of money and we’ll get great players and we’ll make a movie. The Greatest deals with grief head-on, which is such tough subject matter. How do you “get there” as an actor for such gutwrenching stuff?I used the experience of almost losing my boy, Sean, on a dark, dark night in Malibu. The thought of him being airlifted out, his broken body on a stretcher. Just that was enough. You just keep it in abeyance; you read the scene and think this man has held all this in for all this time. Then you quietly sit on the sofa and just test the waters with yourself, some sense memory and it’s just right there. You keep all this pushed aside until the day comes, and then the night before you work you carry it in your head and you’ll go into battle with this emotional baggage. In Remember Me, you also play a father. What made you decide to do that film?Well, it’s like a bookend. It felt right to do; it fit into the time frame of what I could do, scheduling wise, and it was good work — an ensemble piece about this young man, and [whispers] I thought I’d jump onto Robert Pattinson’s coattails. You’re no stranger to fame and paparazzi. What did you think about all the hoopla that surrounds Robert?It was amazing. I’d never had that level of celebrity at that age. I came to my little bit of fame and girls screaming out your name much later in life, not as a 22-year-old. So here’s this young lad and you feel rather protective towards him and you want the best for him. He’s a lovely fellow, a charming young man, and you want to help him sort it all out. We’d be shooting in the Plaza Hotel in New York, and at one end of the block were 3,000 girls and I’d walk to set and all the girls would shout and I thought, “Oh, that’s nice, they remember me.” Then as I’m going up the stairs I’d hear this incredibly loud noise, this sort of screaming masses of hysteria, and that would be Robert coming in behind me. [laughs] Speaking of young and famous, The Greatest also stars Carey Mulligan, who has become quite the “it girl” since then. What advice do you give these young actors?Just enjoy it. Keep your head about your shoulders, stay true to yourself, be honest, be on time, show up, know your lines, and be prepared. I read that your son, Sean, is following in your footsteps and becoming an actor. How do you feel about that?Yes, it’s true, and I’m excited about that. He went to the Academy in London and trained with the Royal Shakespeare and he’s really got the chops. He’s found a producing partner and they’re trying to do some films. It is flattering and I do support him in this as much as I can. We do sit and talk about it, the whole career thing. My youngest son, Paris [age 9], is quite a showman too; he loves an audience. We were out in Santa Monica recently and I look over and he’s break-dancing in the middle of the promenade, just putting on a show for everybody. So, yes, if my children want to be actors, it’s fine with me. I liked hearing Jeff Bridges talk about his dad, Lloyd, and how he celebrated acting. It’s a great profession. What is your favorite character of all that you’ve played?Julian in The Matador. I think it’s because he came into my life at the right time and it was such a liberating experience to actually play this guy. To create something that’s big and bold and had a voice and a swagger. On any given day I never knew what was going to come out of my mouth or how it was going to work. Some of it was planned, some of it just happened. I got to have a belly in that film; yes, the belly was relaxed, and I didn’t have to be cool. Also it was a great script, really good writing that I connected to. So yes, Julian was my favorite so far. And what would be your least favorite?Bond. I thought I got it right by the end, but it was one of those things I always struggled with. I never felt that I really nailed it. There was always a hint of — well an echo of Sean [Connery] and Roger [Moore] that was so indelible in my own mind. But I’m proud of it too; it’s a small group of men, a prestigious group to be in the company of. What about making The Thomas Crown Affair? Was there an “echo” of Steve McQueen in that for you?I tipped my hat to Mr. McQueen every other day. I love that character; we’re going to do it again. I want to do the sequel very much. There was a cinematic alchemy there; it was perfect timing. You know, it started with Beau and me having coffee one morning and talking about Malibu and Steve McQueen and how much we loved him and how cool he was. We ended up talking about Thomas Crown and then we rented the film and we both watched it that night. I knew there was a character in there I could do, albeit differently from the way Steve did it. There were some pretty great sexy scenes in that film between you and Rene Russo, and yet you’re happily married. Is it difficult to balance your relationship at home with the one onscreen?[laughs] My wife calls it legal cheating. I just love Rene, so that helps. I love them all, actually. I love Salma Hayek and Halle Berry, Sophie Marceau, and of course, Susan Sarandon. It’s easy to fall for any of these women, in the theatrical sense, onscreen. No acting required. Meryl Streep, I fell in love with her; she was easy to fall in love with. I’ve loved her for a long time as a guy sitting in the audience. Loved her as a woman, loved her as an actress. She just gave of herself. Julianne Moore and Julianna Margulies, they’re so talented and professional. I really do love them all, but you do the work and then you go home. Julianna Margulies was your co-star on Evelyn, also produced by your company and Beau St. Clair. What are the criteria for the films chosen by Irish DreamTime?I just said to Beau this morning that we have a little trilogy here with The Nephew, Evelyn, and now The Greatest. They’re three very poignant and personal films. It’s great to work on that type of canvas; you don’t do it for the box-office or the glory, you do it to make worthwhile films you care about. We wanted to make films in Ireland, for several reasons, and Evelyn was something I could really relate to from my own childhood in Ireland, being wrenched away and feeling abandoned. Why do you think many of the most successful characters you play require you to be handsome, debonair, and, well, glamorous?Yes, well that’s been my bread and butter [points to his face], the old mug. It scrubs up well and shoulders back, head high, put the twinkle in your eye and play it with a wiggle. [laughs] You get sick of that, too. In The Greatest, there is no vanity; there’s a middleaged man there, having a crisis, and broken and sorrowful and feels forgotten and it’s great to play with all of that. Then you can turn around and put the tux on, and do all the rest. And do you still want to “turn around and put the tux on?”You bet I do. Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s worked before and hopefully it will work again. I have no problem with all of that. It’s a wonderful time right now. I feel like I’m just beginning. There’s a real sense of contentment. Is there any part you’ve taken that you wished you had not? Where, looking back, it might have been a mistake?No. I have loved them all. There’s the joy of getting the job and then just going there and doing it. It might not be the most money or the location you want or it may not be the best script, but I’m a working actor so you just go out there and do your best. Are there any roles you’ve turned down that you wished you said yes to?Yes, there was a film that got nominated for an Academy Award and the director had asked me and I turned it down. There are a few things that have gotten away. I remember earlier in my career, meeting Bob Rafelson and he was doing a movie about the explorer, Richard Burton, and I wanted that so badly and I didn’t get it. I carried the remorse of that one for ages. What actors have inspired you? Whose work do you most admire?Robert De Niro, always, Anthony Hopkins, always, Daniel Day-Lewis is a hell of an actor. And Clooney. [laughs] Yeah, I love George; it’s just the way he does his thing. What director would you most like to work with?Peter Weir. I’d love to work with Peter Weir; I’ve always just thought he was masterful at what he does. I’d love to work with Kathryn Bigelow; I’d love it if she’d do the next Thomas Crown. I’d love to step out with her. I think she’s fantastic. What would you do if you couldn’t act anymore? Say the career ends tomorrow — what would you do with your time?I’d do something in the arts. I’d be in the art world, somehow. I’d get a gallery and paint more. I’d try to make a living with my art. What do you think the secret is to being a great actor?Relaxation. Not to push it. It takes repetition and repetition. Some guys have it right from the get go, but for me it’s always been a work in progress. You prepare as much as you can. You do your homework. There is also perseverance. [laughs] I never gave up. ▼
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Post by Ace on Jun 16, 2010 20:10:47 GMT -5
Brosnan enjoys cheap picnic dates with wife By WENN.com | Thursday, June 17, 2010
The couple has been married for nine years and share two sons, as well the Bond star's biological son and two adopted kids from his previous marriage to late actress Cassandra Harris.
And Brosnan likes to keep their romance alive with al fresco meals at the site of their new home - but keeps costs down with cheap champagne so they can pour all their finances into a dream property.
He tells Britain's Reveal magazine, "I recently bought a picnic basket, filled it with caviar and a bottle of champagne - not the expensive stuff. She doesn't like to spend money because we're building a house, so everything goes into that right now. We sat there in the bare framework and dangled our toes from the first storey, no windows, with the picnic basket and watched the sun go down.
"We like each other and enjoy each other's company. She's very good at what she does as a mother, as a friend, in our partnership and I know when to say, 'Yes, dear.'
"She beautiful, she still breaks my heart. We've come through a lot together, which is bonding and, God willing, we still have a long way to go."
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Post by SecondWind on Mar 24, 2011 14:33:12 GMT -5
Recent interview from RTE www.rte.ie/ten/2011/0322/brosnanp.htmlMade in IrelandTuesday 22 March 2011 When Pierce Brosnan became an ambassador for the new National Academy of Dramatic Art, he was championing two loves in his life: Ireland and acting. Donal O'Donogue spoke to him. "Prayer helped me in those moments in time", says Pierce Brosnan. "It helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer and with a child who had fallen on tough times. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor and to be a man. It always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith. You have to be as kind as you can be to yourself and to other people. And you have to live life as boldly as you can." Brosnan is at his home in Malibu, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where he lives with his wife Keely. "It's glorious here", he says in his distinctive breathy, cut-glass accent. In the background, the birds are singing. In the foreground, a glass clinks as the actor sips a pre-lunch drink. It's the first day of the 31st Dáil and the Navan man is curious about the old sod. "It's historic but they have a historical problem on their hands too", he says. "But there is one thing that the people of Ireland know how to do and that is to survive. You have to keep your faith and stay optimistic." Brosnan could be describing his own life and career. The bullet points are bold: born in Navan, raised in London, famous on TV for Remington Steele, famous everywhere else for James Bond, and defying easy categorisation with his roles in The Matador (Brosnan jokes!), Mamma Mia! (Brosnan sings!) and Seraphim Falls (Brosnan slices open a guy's belly!). "You are constantly reconstructing yourself", he says. "In a way it all leads back to a little boy in Navan, my home town on the banks of the Boyne. Sometimes, it has been painted in melodramatic tones but it was a fantastic way to be brought up. The Catholicism and the Christian brothers, those are deep-rooted images and the foundation for a person of some acting skill." Brosnan can be a mannered interviewee, as if reading from some prepared script. It probably didn't help that a list of questions was requested in advance. His people also mailed an image: a portrait of the actor as a very sexy man, looking incredibly fresh for his 57 years. But when the actor loosens up - as he does when talking about the time he and Quentin Tarantino discussed making a Bond movie together - he's effortlessly warm. If at times his talk of the old country sounds like a barrel of blarney, Brosnan puts his money where his mouth is. Recently, he became the first high-profile figure to support The Lir, Ireland's National Academy of Dramatic Art, which opens its doors this autumn in Trinity College. "I was honoured first of all and it was a win-win situation", he says of the request to become an ambassador and patron. "I have travelled far and wide and made my home in America but I bring Ireland with me and this is a way of having it closer. I also believe that when you have an academy like this it will foster only good things. From harsh times we sometimes get the best art." Pierce Brosnan was 12 years old when he first arrived in London to be with his mother, May (his father left when he was 2). That was August 12, 1964, the same day that Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, died. In another twist of fate - or myth-making - the first movie that Brosnan saw in London was Goldfinger. Movies became a refuge: "a keyhole into another life." He idolised the marquee stars like Marlon Brando and Spencer Tracy, and read Hemingway and Steinbeck. "I remember when I first discovered those writers because the education was so fecking miserable", he says. School was a monstrous comprehensive in Putney. Of the 2,000 or so students, Brosnan reckons he was the only Irish kid. So he was picked on. But he fought back. "I found my own uniqueness there through fighting against those that picked on me", he says. "But fighting can get really tiring." He abandoned school at 16. "I was free of the lot of them", he says. "Free of that crazy madhouse of a school." With a lean education, he set out to become a commercial artist. "I left school with a little cardboard folder that had all my drawings and paintings", he says. "That was my passport out. I found a little studio in Putney. I made cups of tea, watered the spider plants and drew straight lines and circles for a couple of years. Then I found the Oval House Theatre." He attended workshops there. "I was so naïve that I thought this meant carpentry or wallpapering", he says. He learned his craft, formed his own theatre company and called himself an actor. "But I really didn't own it until I went to the Drama Centre and trained", he says. He was cast in a Tennessee Williams play where his acting impressed the legendary playwright. He sent me a telegram. It said: 'Thank God for you dear boy, love Tennessee Williams'." That framed telegram now hangs proudly in his Malibu home. He met and fell in love with Cassie Harris, who was to become his muse and wife and mother to his first child, Sean. When she died in 1991 of ovarian cancer, he was grief-stricken but found solace in his faith. By then, Brosnan had made his name as TV's Remington Steele, a character so smooth he didn't need a personality. Steele was the small screen James Bond: debonair, dashing and someone who always got his man, and his woman. Back then, with Roger Moore running out of eyebrows to raise, it seemed inevitable that Brosnan would get the 007 licence. In 1986, he screen-tested for the part but Remington Steele reclaimed him for six more shows. He eventually became Bond with Goldeneye (1995) and reprised the role three times. He downplays the producers' decision that ended his days as Bond. "Barbara [Broccoli] and Michael [G Wilson], bless their hearts, have their own way of doing it", he says. "At the end of the day, what they say, goes." But he had plans for a fifth Bond. He and Quentin Tarantino discussed the idea in a Beverly Hills hotel over cocktails. Lots of them. "I couldn't find my feet afterwards and could just about get out of the hotel", he says. "Quentin had spent the day celebrating Kill Bill 2. So when he arrived he just waxed lyrical about the movies and what he wanted to do with Bond. Luckily I had a driver. Even more luckily it wasn't Quentin! But nothing came of it." After Bond, Brosnan confounded his critics with a virtuoso performance as a foul-mouthed, washed-out hit-man in The Matador (his tipsy waddle through a hotel lobby wearing nothing but a pair of black underpants and boots is an irreverent hoot). "Little gems like that don't come around that often", he says. But he hit pay-dirt again with the allegorical western, Seraphim Falls and delivered another powerful performance as a slippery ex-Prime Minister in The Ghost Writer, "(Director) Polanski was wonderful to work for", he says of the latter. "It's electric when you're with him. And he has his own way of barking so you have to be thick-skinned. But if you give as good as you get and you have your reasons for doing something, it's OK." Despite the Christian Brothers in Navan, Brosnan never let go of his religion. "God has been good to me", he says. "My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer. It teaches you tolerance of the person that you are and tolerance of the situation that you are in. You try to rise to higher ground. I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith." A few years back, his son Sean was involved in a horrific crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. He remembers that time vividly: the late-night phone call, the frantic dash down the same highway. "I thank God to this day that Sean is still with me and still healthy and still writing his poetry", he says. He counts himself a lucky man. "I still love acting and I'm still lucky to be at the table." He still paints, bright swirling canvases with more than a nod in the direction of Matisse ("I steal from him" he admits). Painting gives him peace and he regularly works while on location, the canvas bridging the distance to his home and his family. Last St Patrick's Day, Brosnan participated in an Irish event at UCLA where he read WB Yeats' politically-charged poem, Easter 1916. "Why did you say 'interesting', when I mentioned that poem?" he asks. Curious. He has a number of projects simmering with his company, Irish Dream Time, including the film St Vincent, in which he plays a hit-man who becomes a priest. "You have to stay hungry and that goes right through to the age of 57", he says. "You can't be complacent about what you do and even more so as a middle-aged man. I remember one time six years ago when I was with Stephen Rea and nursing a pint of Guinness in Vancouver. We were just sitting there, quietly, not a word. And Rea, with that face of his and that delivery, goes: 'Well . . . this is what we do'." * For further information on The Lir go to www.thelir.ie
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Post by steeleicycalm on Apr 20, 2011 11:49:33 GMT -5
Pierce is on this tribute to elizabeth taylor. There is more than one part, i watchd it last weekend and theres quite a few snippets of pierce being interviewed about her. He looks great on these interviews ;D
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Post by Ace on Apr 21, 2011 6:22:59 GMT -5
Great find. Thank you!
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Post by steeleicycalm on Jun 25, 2011 17:45:39 GMT -5
I havent seen this one before
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Post by piercebrosnanhot on Mar 27, 2012 16:28:46 GMT -5
I HOPE YOU WANT TO SEE THIS... Pierce Brosnan hollywood star part 1 Pierce Brosnan hollywood star part 2 . ;D
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Post by Ace on May 19, 2012 13:58:55 GMT -5
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Post by rosafermu on Jun 1, 2012 3:18:27 GMT -5
Interesting interview and great pictures. Ace thank you very much
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Post by rosafermu on Jun 1, 2012 6:39:13 GMT -5
On several occasions I tried to change the avatar to something more modern, and not how I can do with it? thanks
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Post by amilein on Jun 12, 2012 7:25:11 GMT -5
Hey everyone! Does anybody have interviews of Pierce and Keely together? I've been searching google but can't find anything... It'd be great if anyone could help me! Thanks a lot in advance!!!
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Post by Ace on Jun 12, 2012 8:07:13 GMT -5
On several occasions I tried to change the avatar to something more modern, and not how I can do with it? thanks Rosa, click on your PROFILE then click on MODIFY PROFILE. Scroll down to AVATAR and there is a drop link that will give you choice of the avatars I've uploaded. If you want something different then you need to host a photo elsewhere (100 x 100 size) and link to the url under the AVATAR URL option. Or you could send me the photo (or upload it here) and I will upload it for you on my Photo bucket account and provide you the link to it so you can update your account,
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