By Tim Nasson
While the big news about The Tailor of Panama should be that the impeccably styled Pierce Brosnan is poking fun at himself by playing a cynical, rotten, ruthless British secret agent, totally the opposite of the role he plays in the Bond films, the biggest story behind the movie is that it co-stars Daniel Radcliffe as Mark, Harry “The Tailor” (Geoffrey Rush) and Louisa’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) son. Who is Daniel Radcliffe, you ask?
“The lad,” said Brosnan, “will be much more famous than me and 007 when his film opens on Thanksgiving, I’m sure.” Radcliffe’s holiday film is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the most anticipated movie since Star Wars: Episode One. Radcliffe plays Harry Potter.
“Do you like martinis and, if so, shaken or stirred?”, I ask Brosnan, since the cocktail is the one made famous the world over by the Bond films. “You bet,” he laughed. “I like my martinis shaken because stirring bruises the alcohol. I have no idea of the physics of it, but I heard it from someone who knows about those things, and I believe it.”
During the course of filming the movie in Panama, Brosnan had a memorable encounter. “I was at the airport one day, and the President of Panama was there with a retinue of people. I had a dreadful hangover, because the night before was when we had shot the gay disco scene. Here I am feeling like crap and meeting the woman who could potentially
tell the crew to get the hell out of her country if she wanted to. I spoke to her and tried to be as polite as possible so as not to ruin the deal the studio had with her country for filming there.”
There were a lot of security measures taken so that no one involved with the filming was kidnapped. “The people are all trying to survive in a hard political climate in a country that was torn apart by the United States. I felt
very safe there, though.”
Family life
Two days after I interviewed the 49-year-old Brosnan, his fiance Keely had their second child together, a son. “We plan on marrying this year, too. We would have last year, but my older son got into a terrible, near-fatal accident last year, and we postponed the marriage. He is doing very well now, though.” Brosnan, who has had his share of tragedies, lost his first wife to cancer nearly a decade ago.
While Brosnan is under contract to play in two more Bond films, his next big role is that of taking the United States citizenship test. “I love the United States,” he says. “I have two American sons, and this country has em¬
braced me. I look forward to being able to become part of it, officially.” Brosnan, who grew up in County Meath, Ireland, and who worked as a circus fire-eater and London cabdriver before finding his way to acting, arrived in the United States in the early ’80s to star as TV’s Remington Steele. He will keep his Irish citizenship as well. His favorite place to vacation? “Bora Bora, without a doubt. I was taken there by Keely a number of years ago. So for our relationship it has great meaning.”
What will become of James Bond after Brosnan fulfills his contract? “Well, I doubt I will do anymore. The studio wants a new one pumped out every 18 months, and that schedule is too much for me. I am not getting any younger, that’s for sure.
“Hmmm,” he pondered. “Perhaps a Jamie Bond? A woman Bond?”
Pierce Brosan Interview with Tim Nasson for 007 and Tailor of Panama.
