The actors that inspired Pierce Brosnan to pursue his dream
The fertile pastures of Ireland have spawned a fine crop of acting talent over the past few decades, with Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell and Michael Fassbender among its most prominent names. The County Louth-born actor Pierce Brosnan also enjoyed a significant spell of limelight through the 1990s and early 2000s as the titular star of James Bond for four movies. During this period, he attracted attention in Holywood and enjoyed several prominent lead roles outside the spy franchise, including those in 1997’s Dante’s Peak and 1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair. Despite his ultimate success, Brosnan’s road to fame and fortune was as long as it was challenging.
Brosnan’s father departed the family home when he was an infant, leaving his mother to take on parental duties single-handedly. At the age of four, Brosnan’s mother faced the difficult choice to relocate from Ireland to London, seeking employment in nursing. Consequently, Brosnan was cared for by his maternal grandparents until their passing, when he was moved to a boarding house.
“Childhood was fairly solitary,” Brosnan recalled in a 1997 interview with Paul Chutkow. “I never knew my father. He left when I was an infant. […] To be Irish Catholic in the 1950s and have a marriage which was not there, a father who was not there […] the mother, the wife suffered greatly. My mother was very courageous. She took the bold steps to go away and be a nurse in England. Basically, wanting a better life for her and myself. My mother came home once a year, twice a year.”
With such a solitary and confusing beginning to his life, Brosnan learned the importance of inner strength and tenacity. He understood his mother’s “bold” decision to seek a better living in England. When Brosnan enrolled at Drama Centre London in his late teens to begin his foray into acting, he knew success was a by-product of passion and determination.
“When I found acting, or when acting found me, it was a liberation,” he told Chutkow. “It was a stepping stone into another life, away from a life that I had, and acting was something I was good at, something which was appreciated. That was a great satisfaction in my life.”
Brosnan graduated from drama school in 1975 and began his acting career on stage. His passion made for a prolific stage career as both an actor and stage director and by the early 1980s, his phone began to ring for small acting roles. In 1985, Brosnan was nominated for the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Golden Globe for his performance in the mini-series Nancy Astor. This pivotal moment set the Irish actor, who was then in his 30s, on the trajectory towards his first outing as James Bond.
Several iconic actors kept Brosnan’s eyes on the prize during his rise to stardom, none more so than Marlon Brando. The late legend portrayed Vito Corleone in one of Brosnan’s favourite movies, the first instalment of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy.
“Huge fan of Marlon Brando,” Brosnan said of his hero in a conversation with Rotten Tomatoes. “For this man to come out of the shadows playing Don Corleone was just captivating. And it never disappoints; to this day, it doesn’t disappoint. That movie is still a spectacle of Americana storytelling with a performance by him which is just inspiring. And he was an inspiring actor; he was certainly somebody who I still go back and watch and… the music, the story, the whole trilogy — It was very much connected to my youth as a young man about to go off to drama school.”
“Brando was one of many,” Brosnan continued, “Montgomery Clift, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro. When you’re moved emotionally by an actor, you want to be like them, you want to be up there, just that innocent dream that I had as a young man to make movies, to be a part of movies, never in my wildest dreams thinking I was going to come close to it. And it still has that allure.”
Brosnan also revealed that he’s also bowled over by several modern actors. In some of them, he can see his younger aspiring self. “You still — you know, how it goes as an older man, you see young… I saw Brooklyn the other day with Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen, this young fellow — the two of them together were just breathtaking, brilliantly real. [laughs] Same with Michael Shannon in 99 Homes, and Andrew Garfield. It’s good, it’s great.”
The actors that inspired Pierce Brosnan:
- Marlon Brando
- Montgomery Clift
- Spencer Tracy
- Cary Grant
- Paul Newman
- Warren Beatty
- Robert De Niro
