Pierce Brosnan is disappointed with how his time as Bond panned out, but was he really not "good enough" as 007?
Poor Pierce Brosnan has got it in his head that he was never good enough when it came to playing legendary secret service agent, James Bond. He was recently quoted as saying, “I felt I was caught in a time warp between Roger [Moore] and Sean [Connery]…it was a very hard one to grasp the meaning of, for me. The violence was never real, the brute force of the man was never palpable. It was quite tame, and the characterisation didn’t have a follow-through of reality, it was surface. But then that might have had to do with my own insecurities in playing him as well.”
Brosnan had the looks and the accent, but does that make him a good Bond?
We think that Pierce is being a little too hard on himself, but we do get where he’s coming from. Playing James Bond is a massive amount of pressure on any actor. It’s a hugely exposed role and some great actors have taken the helm in the past. In our opinion, the problem wasn’t actually Pierce Brosnan. We understand what he was trying to do with the role, he was trying to recapture the Connery times, when being a smooth talking spy was all it took to save the world. Unfortunately, by the 90s the public demanded something a little more from their characters. Bond needed to grow with the times and it wasn't Brosnan’s fault that the scripts and direction didn’t account for this.
Although this was clearly a fact that didn't go unnoticed. The rejigged Bond movies starring Daniel Craig were steered in a much more modern direction. Sure, Bond is still suave, but he is more rough and ready, more in tune with what an audience likes to see from an action star today. Essentially, that’s what Bond is, but Brosnan’s Bond never graduated from the 1970’s ideal of what a spy should be.
Daniel Craig is considered a successful Bond
What Pierce Brosnan should rest easy knowing is that he is by far not the worst James Bond. George Lazenby is widely accepted to be the worst of the Bonds, but once again, it’s more a case of miscasting than anything else. The problem doesn’t lie with who is playing Bond, but who is conceiving the movies. The casting, the writing and the general feel is what denotes a great Bond movie. What will be most interesting is to find out who will take over from Daniel Craig when he finally finished his stint and whether the Bond movies will continue getting better, or revert to the cliched stereotypes of 80s movies. Only time will tell.
In the meantime we’ll have a martini please, shaken not stirred. Perhaps with a little Daniel Craig on the side. That makes it a Dirty Martini, right?
MORE: Is Tom Hardy the right choice to play the next James Bond?
MORE: Pierce Brosnan on playing James Bond: "I wasn't good enough"
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