Posted by Mr. Beaks

Pierce Brosnan may harbor a few misgivings over how his James Bond tenure ended, but if the best the Broccoli family can do is hire Paul Haggis to restore a little prestige to the 007 franchise, he’s much better off pursuing other projects.  And while his starring role as hit man Julian Noble in The Matador was undertaken prior to his departure from the double-agent series, it’s still a wonderfully profane way to turn his back on a character that was never allowed to play nearly as dirty as he did in Ian Fleming’s novels.  Because Julian, as imagined by writer-director Richard Shepard, is such a scuzzy piece of work, even Fleming’s Bond would blanch at his libertine behavior.  Killing people for money is actually one of his more admirable qualities; when he’s not on assignment, he spends his time getting bombed on the local drink (margaritas in this film) and screwing anything regardless of sexuality or age (Shepard has labeled Julian a Trisexual, as in “He’ll try anything”.) 

Julian is a reprehensible piece of work, but, damn it, he’s also a human being.  When we catch up with him in Shepard’s film, too many years of well paying murder have finally worn him down.  He’s lonely, and, for probably the first time in his life, he’d actually prefer good conversation to wanton sex.  And it’s businessman Danny Wright’s (Greg Kinnear) horrible misfortune to belly up at the bar the night Julian goes trolling for companionship.  What ensues is a smart variation on the buddy comedy genre in which the always dependable Brosnan gives the performance of his career thus far. 

I had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with the gentlemanly actor a few weeks ago at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, and was privy to an engaging back-and-forth that found Brosnan dishing on the unique pleasures of playing a scumbag, the future of Remington Steele (good news and bad news, fans), and his disappointment over losing out to Tom Hanks for The Da Vinci Code.  Hope you enjoy…

Is the beard for a role?

Yeah, I’m down in New Mexico making a movie with Liam Neeson.  It’s called Seraphim Falls.  It’s a post Civil War western and I play [a captain] from the union, and he plays a colonel from the south.  I got in last night, and I’m heading out after this show tonight.

Is there any of you in Julian?

There’s me in every role that I play.  There’s only me to rely on.

But Julian is so different, it’s hard for us to imagine what is Pierce in this guy.

Well, I’m an actor so my job is to act.  Sometimes, I haven’t been given much to act with, but nevertheless I’ve gotten by.  Richard Shepard came bearing gifts with this piece.  He sent this as a writing sample for Thomas Crown 2, technically 3, which we’re trying to do.  I just fell in love with it.  I thought this is great.

What jumped out at you?

I thought it was very play-like, and I liked that it was a kind of ensemble of three people.  I love the twists and turns and the flamboyance, the sheer vulgarian way of Julian Noble’s mouth.  I thought it had good character and I thought it had good heart.  I thought you enter into this heightened theatrical world.  Where most hit-men movies leave off, we start.  It just made me laugh.

How did feel going through the lobby in your underwear?

Oh yeah, it was the lobby of the hotel that we were living in for god’s sake, so all these men and women would see me every day and say, ‘Buenos Dias, Buenos Noches Mr. Brosnan, or Mr. Bond.”  I never escape him.  So the day we came to do the scene, I had a bathrobe on and as I was getting ready.  I had the old knickers on and I thought, “Well, I’ll keep the boots on as well because they just look so funny.  They look so silly with my skinny legs hanging out.” And my partner, Beau Marie St. Clair, she said, ‘Well, now, you could keep the dressing gown on if you want or maybe pajama bottoms.’  I said, “No. Train’s left the station.  This is too good.”  It’s a great piece of schtick.  There’s many ways of looking at it.

Is it good to tap your inner scumbag?

(Laughs) That is a really indelicate way of posing any question.  Well, he’s a lovable scumbag.  That’s the razor’s edge of black comedy, dark comedy, whatever you want to call it.  You’re constantly pushing the audience away, bringing them in, pushing them away, making them feel comfortable, uncomfortable.  Hopefull,y you don’t lose them.  In a word, yes.

Speaking of the underwear, are you a briefs man?

(Long Pause)  Next question.  (Expressing disbelief)  He doesn’t get out much.

Were you already thinking this would be my swan song or anti-Bond role?

No, no, no.  I thought it was a perfect piece.  I thought it was a wonderful, quirky, could-be-hip, cool, independent movie with a bunch of actors who you really admire and respect.  And when we said let’s go do it, we had a play reading like we do with all of our pictures.  And Hope Davis was there . It was incredible working opposite her, and then Greg Kinnear came on board.  Then we had a movie.  I wasn’t trying to do anti-Bond; I was just trying to honor the piece that Richard Shepard had written.

Was it a nod to Bond with the margarita scene, shaking it?

It was there.  It was in the script.  Of course, the emblem of it did not go unnoticed.  None of it has gone unnoticed.  You’re fully cognizant of what you’re doing, especially when you’ve played the same role, created an image for yourself whether it be Thomas Crown or Remington Steele or James Bond.  You’re aware of how you’re perceived and the image you’ve painted yourself into a corner with.  I was looking and wondering when and how and what shape and form the character would come along that would kind of just jump your career in another direction.  Or, if you want to call it break the mold, I was there.  You have to have patience.  If I didn’t have this company of my own, I don't think someone else would have come and offered me this role of Julian Noble.  I wouldn’t have been at the top of the list.  That’s the great… the benefits of having played Bond and having seen other men go down that road over the years.  I wanted to come away with a bit more.  I wanted to create a career for myself that’s hopefully going to keep going.

You’re seedily attractive rather than über attractive in this film. Was it easy as pie?

Easy as pie.  It’s always been there.  Just got started really.  There’re a few others in the back pocket so hopefully we’ll be able to find material to be able to do that. This part just came at the most delicious time; as one chapter closes and the road ahead, where does it lead?  I don't know, and I never have.  But when you have the security of the TV series like Remington Steele or you have a franchise like James Bond in your pocket, sometimes you can get complacent and don’t try hard enough, you don’t push yourself hard enough.

Any talk of a Remington Steele movie?

Mm-hm.  It’s in discussion, we’re working on it.  We have two young wonderful female writers.  They’ve been into the office and they’ve got a take on it.

Where would it go?

I think we’re looking at New York.  Location-wise?

Story-wise?

I look for location first.  Good restaurants?  Days off?  I haven’t really heard the pitch.  They only came into the office.  I’m in the middle of this picture right now.  We discussed it, where we would like it to go and they’ve come in with a little germ of an idea.

Are you nervous about revisiting that character?

I wouldn’t play him.  I would kind of give myself some wonderful cameo role and try to steal the third act or something like that.

Why not play him?

I’m too old to play him right now.  I don’t want to go back there.  I’ve been there.  That’s where I started.  But to be able to produce something and find an actor and actress, I think just the pitch line itself is still good in today’s market.  It’s a piece that is loved and I’m still at the table so to speak, so there could be an audience out there.

Many people in your position would stay home and play with the kids, not work if they don’t have to.

I’d fall off the twig.

Would you?

As much as I love my kids, I also have to make a living.  I took time off after Matador.  I said, “Now I’m just going to see what the new year brings.”  Christmas came and the New Year was kind of scary.  I thought, “Wow, do I really want to be going and playing that role and that role? Hanging out with the topliners and I’m going to play some kind of sleazy corporate man in a suit supporting role?”  Which is okay, but I kind of thought, “Let’s just have patience and hang back a bit here instead of always working.”  So the year off was great.  It was wonderful.  It gave me time to recover and find out what it was about.

Did you and Greg have a great friendship?

Really great.  I admire the guy’s work and he’s just one of those wonderfully funny people.  He makes you funny because he’s so deft and sharp at it.  If he hadn’t been as great and as giving and as generous as an actor, it would have been all for naught, my part.  I would have just been kind of rudderless.  But his character was so vulnerable and open, it just made Julian, highlighted his own vulgarity in some kind of moronic ways.

So many of your roles are developed by Irish Dreamtime, you pursue them, but do you often look for roles that you don’t have a stake in with your production company?

Mm-hmm, yeah. The Da Vinci Code, I wanted to do that.

I think you’re late.

I think I am.  Someone named Tom, or someone.  He’s done a few things, came from a sitcom, cross dressing.  But only because I was doing After the Sunset in the Bahamas.  Every time I’d look around, every man and his dog was reading this and people said, “You should play this role”.  So, I read it and I thought, “I should play this role.”  I didn’t get it, so there you go.

How is New Mexico similar or different than Mexico City?

It is New Mexico. Somehow the feel of Matador and now a year goes by and I’m doing New Mexico.  It’s wonderful.  I love the land, the people.  Especially New Mexico is rifling.  The texture of the landscape and the way of life, the Indians.

And he’s not a nice guy either?

My guy?  He’s a field operative of his time.  Liam is chasing my character with a posse of four.  I take them out one by one until there’s just Liam left.

Did you get to know any matadors?

Yeah, Israel [Tellez], the young man who was the matador.  The beautiful young fellow out there in the tight pants.  I’m sure you girls paid attention to him.  He’s one of the top matadors.

But you didn’t see him fight?

No, I didn’t.  I don’t want to see it.  Didn’t go near it.  The mythology of the bullfighter and the metaphor of it, I thought it was well used in the film by Richard.  The poetry of Locke, the paintings of Picasso, I’m fascinated.  To actually see one go down, no desire.

What’s Mexicali?

Mexicali is a project we have and we worked on and we put on the shelf because we kept on bumping into dead ends.  When people ask you what you’re doing, you think should I say something, should I not say something?  But what the heck!  Speak about what you’re doing – sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Since you’re producing more and came out of television, are there any TV shows you’re watching to see where the next hot talent is coming from?

Not really.  I have no idea what’s going on in TV. I probably should, especially if we’re going to set sail with Remington, but I really don’t know.  TV comes around and the kids come home from school, you get the dinner together, you get them into bed and it’s like “Okay, bed time.  Let’s watch a DVD or something like that.”  We’ll catch up on old movies.

With some kids who are young adults now and some that are very young, do you have to be in two different parenting modes at the same time?

No, I just got the two boys here that are beside me.  Sean is twenty-two and Charlotte and Christopher have their own life and that’s coming together gloriously, thank heavens.  So it’s just little ones at hand.  Four-year-old and an eight-year-old.

Hasn’t Sean been in the tabloids in London?

About what?  Come on now, be specific.  (He lets the dumb broad who asked the question twist in the wind a little.)

Something drug related?

No.  You’re the first woman to bring this up.  Be kind.

Does your turquoise stone pendent have any meaning?

My wife bought this for Thanksgiving.  We were down by the Rio Grande and there was some old lady selling Turquoise, so it’s hanging around my neck.

What’s happening with Topkapi Affair with the Sony changeover?

We’re going ahead.  Amy Pascal is very enthusiastic for us to make The Topkapi Affair.  We have taken just the title and the spine and then embellished upon that, and made it our own, so structurally it’s very sound and now it’s time to get the interior and the nuance and the character and the voice.

Is there still room for Rene [Russo]?

There’s always room for Rene.

Will you be thrilled if you get Oscar nominated for Matador?

I would be over the moon.  Of course I would be.

Is your character in Seraphim Falls based on a real character?

No, it’s just fictional.  David Von Enken has written this piece.  David is a young writer who has done a lot of CSIs and he did one short film called “Bullet in the Brain”.  Fifteen minutes of pure joy.  Beautiful.

Too early to think of the Matador sequel?

Oh no, we’ve thought about it.  Greece.  And a lovely red bathing costume.

The Matador opens today in New York and Los Angeles.  It is scheduled to expand to the top twenty markets on January 13^th, and go wide the following week.  Don’t miss it.