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Pierce Brosnan is a film producer, environmentalist and an actor most famous for portrayal of James Bond from 1995 to 2002. Here are some interesting facts about the actor who also has other famous movies such as “Mamma Mia”, “Dante’s Peak” and “The Thomas Crown Affair” to his name.
- Brosnan was first offered the role of Bond in 1987, when NBC cancelled the popular TV series Remington Steele. However, the series was re-started and he lost the chance to Timothy Dalton.
- His first Bond movie was “Golden Eye,” in 1995 which became the most successful bond movie after “Moonraker” with $350 million worldwide.
- Robert Ebert wrote “Brosnan as Bond is somehow more sensitive, more vulnerable, and more psychologically complete.”
- Before filming began, he injured his hand at home and hence his 22 year old son Christopher Brosnan was used as his hand double.
- Except Brosnan, no other Bond was allowed to act in other movie while in contract for James Bond. However, he was not allowed to wear Taxedo in other movies. But, he appears with a Taxedo in “The Mirror has Two Faces,” in 1996, a year after his first Bond movie.
- He was born as Pierce Brendan Brosnan on May 16, 1953, to Thomas Brosnan, a carpenter and May Smith in Ireland.
- His father left the family when he was an infant and by his 4th birthday his mother moved to London to work as a nurse. He was brought up by his grandparents.
- After the death of his grandparents he spent 4 years in a boarding house before reuniting with his mother and new father Bill Carmichael, at the age of 10.
- By the age of 11, he was almost six feet tall and that made him an easy target for bullies.
- Ironically, the first movie that he watched was 007 movie “Goldfinger,” in 1964, when he was 12.
- He is a trained fire eater, learned during a painting workshop when a fire eater was teaching people how to do it.
- He learned acting for three years at the Drama Centre, London. He later described the feeling, “When I found acting or when acting found me, it was liberation. It was a stepping stone into another life, away from a life that I had, and acting was something I was good at.”
- He made his theatrical debut with “Wait Until Dark,” for York Theatre Royal. He was working there as an acting assistant stage manager at that time.
- He rose to fame with the play “The Red Devil Battery Sign” playing the role of McCabe. The whole London was talking about him.
- He has preserved the telegram sent by his step father after his acting prowess went viral. The message was “Thank God for you, my dear boy.”
- His television personality grew with the success of popular US miniseries “Manions of America.” He played the leading role.
- He was nominated for Best Supporting actor at the 1985 Golden Globe Award for the portrayal of Robert Gould Shaw II, in the Theatre documentary of the life of Lady Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit in British Parliament.
- His fame grew further with romantic detective series “Remington Steele,” playing the lead role in 1982.
- The Wahsington Post that year had indicated that Brosnan could become young James Bond. He was indeed offered the role in 1987, but he had to wait till 1995.
- His first spy movie before being cast as famous Bond was “The Fourth Protocol,” in 1987, alongside Michael Caine.
- His character Stu in “Mrs. Doubtfire,” was initially meant to be an arrogant villain but was later rewritten to be a perfect replacement father for kids.
- He co-found a production company “Irish Dreamtime,” with producer and friend Beau St. Clair in 1996.
- His production company’s first movie project was “The Thomas Crown Affair,” in 1999 with him in the lead role. It met both box office and critical success.
- He took golf lessons for a scene in the movie “The Thomas Crown Affair,” in which he is hitting out a sand trap. He is not a golfer by interest.
- In the movie, he performed his own stunts during a boat crash scene.
- Brosnan required 8 stitches to his face during the shoot of “Tomorrow Never Dies.” In a particular scene a stuntman’s helmet hit him in the face by mistake. Later, they had to shoot the movie showing only one side of his face.
- During an underwater scene in the movie “The World is Not Enough,” Bond adjusts his tie. Brosnan came up with the idea and the director liked it.
- Although his fourth Bond movie, “Die Another Day,” was a box office success, he himself has criticized many aspects of the movie.
- Brosnan’s face was used as the face of Bond in the video game “Nightfire,” in 2002, while the voice was provided by Maxwell Caulfield.
- In 2004, he was part of another James Bond videogame, “Everything or Nothing,” this time lending voice as well as his face.
- He also lent his voice to a machine in an episode of the animation TV series “The Simpsons,” titled “Treehouse of Horror XII.”
- He was very much appreciated for his performance in the 2004 movie, “Laws of Attraction,” alongside Julianne Moore. This was his first movie post the James Bond role.
- His performance was praised as “surprisingly effective, gently rifting off his James Bond persona and supplementing it with a raffish energy,” by Garreth Murphy of Entertainment.ie.
- He was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Drama at the Golden Globe for his performance in the movie “The Matador.”
- He was cast as Gideon in the movie “Seraphim Falls,” in 2006, alongside fellow Irishman Liam Neeson. They both play Americans despite being Irish and Xander Berkeley being an American plays as an Irish in the movie.
- According to Brosnan, both he and Neeson had the most fun in their career during the shoot, because they both loved westerns as kids and were thrilled to be part of it.
- In the movie, “Butterfly on a wheel,” aka “Shattered,” in 2007, Brosnan crashed the car in a parking lot. This happened for real and the reactions of the actors were real too.
- In 2008, Brosnan signed for “Mamma Mia,” without knowing anything about the project. He later said, he would have signed anything involving Meryl Streep as he fancied this gorgeous blonde since Drama School.
- In “Mamma Mia,” all the actors sung their own songs. In most of the reviews Brosnan’s voice was compared to that of a water buffalo, a donkey and a wounded raccoon.
- He married Australian Actress Cassandra Harris on December 27, 1980. He first met her in 1977, after he left drama school. They have a son Sean, born on September 13, 1983.
- He adopted Harris’s children Charlotte and Christopher, when their father Dermot Harris died in 1986. They took the surname Brosnan after that.
- Harris died on December 28, 1991, due to an Ovarian Cancer at an age of 43. The same disease took the life of her daughter Charlotte on June 28, 2013. She was 42 at that time.
- Harris always wanted Brosnan to act in a Bond movie. She had acted in “For Your Eyes Only,” in 1981. 4 years after her death Brosnan was offered the role for “Goldeneye.”
- He met Keely Shaye Smith, an American journalist in 1994 and married her in 2001. They have two sons Dylan Thomas Brosnan and Paris Beckart Brosnan.
- He holds dual citizenship of Irish and American. He became the US citizen on September 2004.
- Due to his popularity generated by “Remington Steele,” he met his original father who left him during his childhood. Brosnan met him in a hotel in Ireland during shoot for the TV series. He regretted meeting him on that occasion and rather preferred a private meet.
- He has vocally supported same-sex marriage.
- In 2004, he was named as the Best Dressed Environmentalist by “Sustainable Style Foundation.”
- He regularly raises money through the sales of his paintings for charitable causes.
- He owns a house in Hawaiian Island of Kauai and resides in Malibu, California. Along with his wife, he donated $100,000 to replace a playground in Kauai.
