E-mail a friendPierce Brosnan
original airdate April 30, 2004
Although he's played a variety of strong roles, Pierce Brosnan is probably best known as 'James Bond.' Brosnan was a teen runaway, who worked with the circus as a fire-eater before turning to an acting career. The Manions of America miniseries introduced the Irish actor to America and was the springboard to his popular TV series, Remington Steele. Brosnan's latest project is the feature, Laws of Attraction.
Pierce Brosnan
Tavis: I'm delighted to welcome Pierce Brosnan to the program tonight. The talented actor now known to millions of moviegoers worldwide as James Bond has taken on a decidedly different role for his next film. He's both star and E.P., executive producer, of the new romantic comedy "Laws of Attraction." Here now, a scene from "Laws of Attraction."
Daniel Rafferty: I don't lie. I don't approve of it. When have I ever lied to you?
Audrey Miller: Well... let me tell you something, buddy. If you are taking this case to mess with me, things are gonna get really ugly.
Daniel: Uglier than this? Then let me tell you something, if I may. If you were able to turn down your self-serving paranoia to a gentle simmer for a brief moment, you might just discover that you and I could actually coexist quite successfully. And I don't mean only professionally. Don't forget to wash your hands.
Tavis: Pierce Brosnan, nice to meet you.
Pierce: Nice to meet you, Tavis.
Tavis: Glad to have you here.
Pierce: Well, thank you. It's good to be here.
Tavis: This is a decidedly different role for you, is it not?
Pierce: It is, in some respects, and yet it's a kind of throwback to some of the work that I did when I came to this great country 20-something years ago and did "Remington Steele." It's a romantic comedy, and I should have done one probably sooner than this, but nevertheless, here it is. "Laws of Attraction." And it's kind of a--it's a throwback, really, to the Hepburn-Tracy movies. And if we come halfway close to what those 2 great actors did, then I'll be a happy man.
Tavis: Forget halfway. You come a third. You come a quarter close to that. You're in good shape. You mentioned "Remington Steele," and I apologize. It's our first time having a chance to chat, and I know you've been asked everything--but not by everybody. And I've always wanted to ask what--in terms of setting your career on a certain course--the opportunity to play a character like Remington Steele did for you. Because I could see you--I'm a huge James Bond fan. I have the whole collection. I watch it all the time. Whenever I have any free time, I'm watching a James Bond flick, as all my friends know. I could see you as James Bond when you were, in fact, Remington Steele. Did you have a course already set in your mind that you wanted to play this debonair, this charismatic, this smooth--'cause you play these kinds of characters flawlessly.
Pierce: Well, thank you. Thank you. No, I didn't really have a plan in mind. I came out here on a wing and a prayer 22, 3 years ago, thanks to Freddy Laker and my late wife who gave me the courage to say we should go to America and you should be there. So I got here, and I came here with dreams and aspirations to be doing movies, hard-core movies and dramatic roles, but I was offered "Remington Steele." and gladly, so I accepted it with open arms. And Bob Butler, who created it--it was Michael Gleason who wrote it, and Bob Butler was the director--he said we're doing an old-fashioned movie. So I steeped myself in the Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy movies and set forth. I really...I really wasn't sure where it was all going, but I had a job, I was in America, and I was a happy man. And then of course from there, you end up...when that show got canceled in '86, they offered me the James Bond in '86, and it came and went because of my contract. Time goes on, the career--I kept on working. And the Bond came back into my life again. So it's just, uh, I don't know. Maybe I just scrub up well. I happen to like clothes. I like style.
Tavis: Ha ha ha!
Pierce: You know, that has something to do with it.
Tavis: That's a nice way of putting it, you scrub up well. I mean, you played--every time you play a character that has smooth written anywhere in the character, you pull that off...
Pierce: Smooth. Slick.
Tavis: Smooth. Slick.
Pierce: When I was at school, they called me Irish. And then when I went to drama school, they called me Hollywood.
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Pierce: In drama school, I was known as Hollywood. 'Cause I guess I'd always had some dream or aspiration to come out here.
Tavis: You mentioned that your wife gave you the courage...your late wife gave you the courage to come here to America because you belonged. I've been reading a lot about your background and your connection to your homeland of Ireland. What--in this business, there's so many kids in America who grow up wanting to be a star, wanting to be an actor. Nowadays everybody wants to have their 15 minutes of fame, and if you're lucky and get a reality TV show opportunity, you can have your 15 minutes of fame. But where you were growing up and when you were growing up...how does that experience--how is that experience translated into the seriousness with which you do the work that you do? If at all.
Pierce: I take the work very seriously. And I also try to--
Tavis: You fought to get here.
Pierce: I fought to get here. I took a risk to get here. Once I discovered acting when I was about 16, 17, I found a home for myself. I found--I call it a certain sanctuary for myself. Because I was really rudderless up until then. I left school at 15. I was good at art. I became a commercial artist. But I couldn't see where my life was gonna go stuck in a studio and, uh...one day I was hanging my coat up, and I was talking to a buddy from the photographic department. He said you should come along to this place called the Oval House Theatre Club. I went along, and life changed. There--it was '69, '70, and in this arts lab, there was the living theater workshops, Grutowski, the Black Panthers were there, there was poets, there was mime. And my education began as an actor. I did that for 2 years, and then I realized I didn't have a formal training, so I trained. I went to a very good school. Good teachers. Teachers who taught me that acting is about doing. Acting's about life and death. They were very strict. They were very inspirational. And you...you kinda carry that with you. And, uh, I've been lucky. I've been lucky, and I've put myself--you know, I came to America. It could have all gone belly up, but it didn't. I got the job, and I had a good sense and intuition about where I was at and what I wanted and, uh, I've just always loved to work. And tried not to beat myself up on it too much.
Tavis: I figured you might say something like that, because it just seems to me that people who have to work hard...nobody becomes an overnight sensation. I've learned that there's no such thing as an overnight sensation--but I find that people who have to struggle, particularly to make their way to these shores, say nothing of the struggle that one engages when he or she hits Hollywood--they end up appreciating and having a different sort of relationship to the world than somebody who--
Pierce: Gets it for nothing.
Tavis: Who knew somebody who got the hookup, as we like to say.
Pierce: Well, you know, nothing comes from nothing, and I think, as I say, acting is about doing, and hopefully you get the breaks, and hopefully you don't get too mangled by it, because you are constantly being judged in this game. And that--that--you have to have a thick skin for that. You have to be as tough as old boots. So, yeah, I got lucky. Luck of the Irish, maybe.
Tavis: Speaking of Irish, I mentioned that "Laws of Attraction" was filmed almost entirely--not entirely--but a great deal of it in Ireland.
Pierce: When I read the script, it was set in New York. And I wanted to go back to New York. I'd had great success there with a film called "The Thomas Crown Affair," and I thought this was a lighter picture, and I thought it would be a good bookend. But then when we came to put the money together...
Tavis: Ireland was a little bit cheaper. Let me guess. Ireland's a little bit cheaper than New York City.
Pierce: So we went to Ireland, and, uh, we shot the whole thing there. Which I think is pretty cool, actually. I think we may have pulled it off. And we had about 5, 6 days in Dublin...in New York. And, uh, that's the movie. It was great to go back there. My company is called Irish Dreamtime.
Tavis: Indeed.
Pierce: And, uh, that company grew out of...James Bond and the good fortune I found with that.
Tavis: What's that feel like, though? I can only imagine that must be a pretty...triumphant, wonderful feeling to go back to Ireland and with your own production company, star that you are, and star in and produce this wonderful film, "Laws of Attraction." That's gotta--that's gotta make you feel good.
Pierce: There's a good feeling there, yes. I love going back to Ireland. There's always a--there's a part of me that discovers a part of myself and where I began as a young lad. And they're always very welcoming, and I always feel very comfortable there. You know, I'm an Irishman by way of London and now residing in Hollywood. So I'm made up of many parts, but the true core and essence, I think, of who Pierce is is an Irishman. So it was great to do it. And it was wonderful to get Julianne. I mean, we had this text which was really good. It was in fighting form, and then who do you get to play with? Who do you get to do this movie with? There were many names bandied around, and one day, Julianne's name came up, and it was--couldn't be anybody else but her. And she loved the script, wanted to work with me. And we had a great director in Peter Howitt, who's an Englishman and a writer and a director. So the piece had a slightly cynical heart, and then it, uh, was nurtured on by Peter Howitt into the film that you saw last night.
Tavis: A guy could be--a guy could be pretty jealous of you. You've had the opportunity to work with some really nice...how can I put this without getting in trouble--some very nice costars, shall we say...Julianne Moore and Halle Berry, and in "The Thomas Crown Affair--"
Pierce: Hey, it's a tough job, man...
Tavis: Somebody's gotta do it. I know.
Pierce: Someone's gotta do it, you know.
Tavis: Ha ha ha! I ain't mad at you. Let me put it that way. You mentioned a moment ago...you used this phrase, um, "Who Pierce is," and I--I want to talk, if I can, without getting too personal, about who Pierce is. And one of things that fascinates me about you and one of the things I've been wanting to talk to you about is what it is about you--and I'm not trying to butter you up or brownnose here, but I'm fascinated about what it is about you that so motivates you, so drives you and inspires you to be such an advocate. I spend as much time as I can trying to make a commitment--a commitment and, for that matter, a contribution to my community and my country. I think a lot of folk, you know, care about making a difference. But I had to write these things down, as a matter of fact, 'cause I don't know that there's nothing that you ain't doing or have not done to try to, um...to make life better for people. You are a...big-time environmentalist, particularly for marine animal life. Most people who know your story know that you're very big on the environment. Your first wife died of ovarian cancer, and you've been actively working for women's health care issues.
You've used--you used the money--this really cracked me up. You used the money from your second wedding, the money that you made from people taking photos and paparazzi and all that stuff, so you charge folk, or you let people pay you to cover the second wedding. Then you took that money to help fund a Tibetan school.
Pierce: Yes.
Tavis: Very much involved in nuclear disarmament, Global Security Institute. You've been working with them. And all sorts of other children's issues, including UNICEF Ireland. I don't know that--I don't know when you find the time to do all this, but you really, for whatever reason, like putting your hands to the plow, so to speak. Why?
Pierce: Because if I hadn't been an actor, I probably would have been a social worker or a teacher. If I'd had the education, I would have been a teacher, possibly. Because why? Because...
Tavis: Glad you ask. Ha ha ha.
Pierce: Because it--it feels good, because they are issues that touch my heart, and because I was asked, and I believed in them, and I said yes. You have to careful of not spreading yourself too thin. All of these are over a course of nearly 10 years now, 12 years work. The women's health care came from losing a wife to ovarian cancer, an illness which last 4...lasted 4 years and a passing. And a daughter who--who lives under the mantle, maybe, of ovarian cancer being hereditary. So you speak out. Uh, that's an obvious one, and then...I'd been mildly involved in various environmental causes, and in my days of being a widower and kind of trying to search for myself and pick myself up again, good fortune came, and love came, um...in the shape and form of Keely Shaye, my wife, and she--
Tavis: Some guys have all the luck. They find love twice.
Pierce: Well, I was very lucky in finding her. And we were in Mexico. I was down there. I was working for the American Oceans campaign. She was there covering it for NBC, and so...everything happened at once. I find love again. James Bond comes back into my life again. You stand up for a few causes. Now you have a voice. Now you're suddenly this, supposedly, big man, you know, James Bond...but you don't know, and you speak up for things that--that means something to you. That's the way it goes on.
Tavis: You were doing--you were speaking up, to your point, before, as you put it, James Bond came back into your life. I wonder whether or not--I'm not trying to get too--too spiritual or esoteric or existential here, but I wonder whether or not you think that those good things coming back into your life had to do with--you know where I'm going with this--had to do with putting that good in the universe.
Pierce: Oh, I think so. I think it helps. I think it's...if...I believe in trying to do good things. It's as simple as that, and if you have good fortune, then you should share it and spread it around as much as possible--your time, your efforts, um...financial contributions that you make. I have children. I have now 5 children. I have a granddaughter, and someday, I will quietly pop my clogs, and I'll be known as an actor. But what did I do for the planet? What did I do for--for the world around me, close at hand or on a larger scale? Especially when I had the wherewithal to do it. So...
Tavis: Ever worry that speaking out on the wrong issue at the wrong time on the wrong front may--may curse you in this business? That happens. People do get blackballed from time to time.
Pierce: They do, indeed.
Tavis: Maybe not James Bond--
Pierce: No--
Tavis: And if Bond gets blackballed, he can always get his way out of anything. So I don't know, but--
Pierce: But I know what you're saying. You know, we've seen it. It's palpable in this time and climate that we live in with the government that we have now where you really want to trust your leaders, and it's very hard to trust your leaders. Um...so in this town called Hollywood, we've already seen people speak up, speak out against an administration or against a war, and...the retaliation has been kind of rather, uh...swift at times and immediate, and that's not good. That's really not good at all. So, it hasn't happened to me yet, but possibly. If something--there will be a time maybe I'll say something, and it'll be the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, but...you know, the work that I do on environmental issues are--are so far-reaching and so broad that many people...uh, behind the movement, and, uh...you try and align yourself with the right people.
Tavis: I'm glad you said that, because one of the things, Pierce, that--that's always bothered me--and this is not to cast aspersion on you at all. I'm delighted that you do the work that you do--but with specific regard to the environmental movement, since you mentioned it, one of the things that always bothered me--and maybe you can pass this message on to some of your environmental friends--um, it seems to me that the environmental movement has to do a better job, since it is the one thing, certainly, that everybody has to be, as you well know, more serious about, more concerned about. Reduce and reuse and recycle and all the stuff that we need to be doing to protect our planet. Because we all benefit if we do, and if we don't, we all perish as fools together. It seems to me that the environmental movement has not done a very good job of...speaking to a broad range of people, people of color mainly. Whenever I see people speaking out about the environment, they always look like you. It's a big--and I'm not, again, suggesting that people aren't sincere about it, but it's always a big Hollywood shindig. It's always a bunch of white folk in Hollywood who are doing this. Again, I'm not mad at anybody about that. Somebody's gotta get out in front and do that, and maybe the blame--maybe the aspersion ought to be cast of people of color, in this business and beyond, for not being involved in it, but am I missing something here about that fact that this movement has to be more expansive if we really are gonna get the message out that needs to be out there?
Pierce: I would say yes. You're absolutely right. It's not something that I've actually thought about, but now that you mention it, uh...I don't know how that's gonna happen. I don't know how that will be passed on, but here on this program, right now as we speak, there will be people out there, black folk, who will say, "Yes. I want to participate. I want to come forward. I want to say, this should not be happening to our oceans. This should not be happening to our--to our forestries."
Tavis: I'm glad you do that. To the issue of nuclear disarmament--before I get back to James Bond in my time left out here--gotta always end with James Bond. Um, I--my sense is that that issue, for you and for all of us who care about it, has got to become a lot more important now. It doesn't have to become. It has, in fact, become more important, given what's happening in the world as we know it. Um...your thoughts?
Pierce: It's, uh...they are there, and I'm not the most eloquent speaker to be talking about nuclear disarmament, but I find it terrifying. I find it...that somebody in power at the wrong time maybe... could do something catastrophic. Uh...and we have a very bullish government. They are men of--they're men of--of war, and we are at war. So...restraint. Communication between countries. You have North Korea up there, which is dangerous, and...I try to...participate as much as I possibly can against...nuclear disarmament.
Tavis: James Bond. I gotta get back to James Bond. There is a new video game--
Pierce: Yeah.
Tavis: That bears your voice and your likeness, your face. "James Bond, 007: Everything or Nothing?"
Pierce: I think that's the name of the game. Uh...
Tavis: Ha ha! That is the name of the game. Was that fun?
Pierce: I haven't seen it. I went into the studio, and I recorded the voice for it, and that was it. They were going to use my likeness, I think, whether I liked it or not.
Tavis: Might as well cooperate.
Pierce: Yeah.
Tavis: It's gotta be the opportunity of a lifetime to play James Bond.
Pierce: James Bond has been huge in my career. I wouldn't be able to be sitting here with you probably talking about my own movie, "Laws of Attraction," and other films that I've done with my company if it hadn't been for James Bond. So...I've had the greatest time in the last 10 years of doing it, almost, and, uh...I'm not sure where it's gonna go from here, but, uh, it's been good.
Tavis: With your production company--before I let you get out of here--what else do you want to do? I mean, you're really getting out there producing more films. What's on the docket?
Pierce: The next picture is down in Mexico City. It's Greg Kinnear and myself. It's called "The Matador." It's a black comedy. And then later on in the year, we have a movie called "Mexicali," which is kind of a big action-adventure. I have no idea. I want to do as much as possible, as often as possible, and as--with as much diversity as possible. I'm at a point now in my career where I've had good success with Bond, but there's got to be more to life than playing that role. I don't know. I've got big dreams, aspirations, still.
Tavis: Big dreams are important, aren't they?
Pierce: Big dreams are very important for everybody. You gotta have those dreams. You gotta hold those dreams, dreams those dreams, and don't let anyone take them away from you. So...yes.
Tavis: Yeah. Well, I have enjoyed the opportunity to talk to you. I enjoyed the movie "Laws of Attraction." Hope it does extremely well for you, and you are welcome back here anytime.
Pierce: Thank you very much.
Tavis: And, uh, I'm still working out on a regular basis, and if I ever get down to your size, any of that stuff that you don't ever want to wear a second time, for movie premieres and interviews, feel free to send it my way.
Pierce: Too kind. You got it. See you, Tavis. Take care.
Tavis: As you can tell, I had a great time talking to Pierce Brosnan. As a reminder, "Laws of Attraction" is now playing in theaters around the country. That's our show for tonight. I want to thank Pierce Brosnan for coming by to talk to me. Hope you enjoyed it half as much--quarter as much as I did. If you did, you had a great time. You can catch me on the radio at NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles, and as always, keep the faith.
Back to April 30, 2004