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Anyone else feel like Brosnan was the "fall guy"?
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True. The producers have said lots of nice things about Pierce and are fond of him, and found it difficult to tell him they'd be recasting. I've never seen any "blaming" from them, they are still saying Pierce was great and did a good job. They're also not "letting him take the blame" - they're very very nice about him, what more could they really do for him? If there's blaming in his direction it does indeed come from fans.
I will say I think Brosnan was a better Bond than some of his Bond movies deserved. As the overall movies got worse, I thought his performance as Bond got better. He seemed the most comfortable in the role in DAD, even though everything else about that movie was pretty terrible.
I really liked Brosnan as Bond. Would've liked to have seen him take over in '93 after a '91 Dalton movie and stay through '02/'03. Bond was back making money with a fresh face and I don't think they really cared enough at the time to spend the money/time on making a truly great movie post-GE.
His performance was all very hollow and shallow, which must have had further influence on the scripts. When Dalton was Bond, extra effort went into trying to bring the scripts back to Fleming, mainly because Dalton had a desire to do that, and I feel the same has happened with Craig.
Brosnan was only interested in a shallow cinematic interpretation, where he saw Bond as a super hero, not as a flawed human being. I doubt he's even read any of the novels.
For that alone, he deserves every ounce of criticism that comes his way.
Nah. Lee Majors was the fall guy:
:D
I've heard him mention Fleming many times in interviews. And, even though his first exposure to Bond was a cinematic one, Brosnan's favourite Bond novel is Moonraker. And to describe his view of the character as shallow is very wide off the mark in my opinion.
As for Brosnan, some of his defenders always blame the scripts and say that he *could* have been a great Bond if only given the chance to show what he could really do. To me that's ridiculous and is, at best, wishful thinking. Why would Brosnan be capable of giving a great performance but hold back? As both Dalton and Craig have shown, a good actor can infuse a single word line with great meaning if acted properly (or with no words at all). But that is ignoring the most damning evidence of all. Brosnan, at the time, was given more emotional meat to work with than any other Bond actor. Every one of his films had scenes and relationships that should have been knocked out of the park - Alec's death, return, and betrayal in GE, Paris's death in TND, the whole of TWINE, and the disavowal and rejection by MI6 in DAD. And what did we get? Pain face, yelling, over-acting, and the most obvious line readings possible, which belonged more on TV than in a big-budget feature film.
Despite all that, I did like Brosnan in his time and find him a likable, if limited, actor as Bond. But no matter how much I enjoy him I'd never overstate his abilities as an actor in the series.
Those people being called Purvis and Wade, also screenwriters of a certain critically acclaimed BO behemoth - Skyfall.
I'm no fan of SF (infact, I think it has all the hallmarks of P+W's worst work), but spot the difference - it's not the scripts, it's the guy playing Bond. Brosnan was an attrocious Bond from day one. A good actor can turn a lousy screenplay into a mediocre film (what DC has done with SF in my opinion), but give a mediocre actor a lousy screenplay and you have a recipe for cinematic disaster - hence the sorry state of the Bond series from 95-02.
"George is just an angry, old, pissed-off guy. He was never an actor, but some pissed-off Aussie who doesn`t know how to show his feminine side. I met him, and he`s got that kind of brittle edge to him."
"There was only one Bond for me, and it was Sean Connery. That made the role daunting."
"Bond is an enigma. He`s smooth and bigger than life, but he`s vague as a personality. It`s a little like doing a period piece. Look, I`m thankful, the role made me an international star. I`ve been in the backwaters of Papua New Guinea and heard, 'Hey, Bond.'"
"(March 2004) They`re too scared. They feel they have to top themselves in a genre which is just spectacle and a huge bang for your buck. But I think you can have your cake and eat it. You can have real character work, a character storyline and a thriller aspect and all kinds of quips, asides, the explosions and the women. We`re just saturated with too many overblown action films with no plot. That`s ludicrous. It`s so damn crazy! That`s absolutely sheer lunacy because "Casino Royale" is the blueprint of the Bond character. You find out more about James Bond in that book than in any of the other books. I would love to do a fifth Bond and then bow out, but if this last one is to be my last, then so be it. My contract is up. They can do it or not."
"(on Casino Royale (2006)) I`m looking forward to it like we`re all looking forward to it. Daniel Craig is a great actor and he`s going to do a fantastic job."
It never made it in to the papers, but I`ve had my face sliced open by a stuntman and a knee injury. But it`s all part and parcel of being Bond.
"I think Daniel (Daniel Craig) is a very fine actor. These are rocky waters, but I think he will have the last laugh. You get twisted some way or another if you throw yourself into it. There`s going to be mishaps."
"It would have been great to light up and smoke cigarettes, for instance. It would have been great to have the killing a little bit more real and not wussed down. It`s all rather bland. I remember doing a sex scene with Halle (Halle Berry) - I mean frolicking in the bed - and there was director Lee Tamahori right under the sheets with us. But the way we ended up doing it was almost like the old days in Hollywood - kissing the girl but still having your feet on the floor."
"(2005) A few years ago I would have said I could imagine playing James Bond in a more ferocious way. Like a sort of Quentin Tarantino character - but now, at 52, I am definitely too old."
"I know most actors say otherwise, but I like sex scenes. Bond was supposed to be this great lover, but I always found the love scenes in those movies a little dull. It`s lovely to work out the fantasy of it all in celluloid and then go home to my wife."
"(on the movie industry)There`s too many people in seats of power who just haven`t got a clue what they`re doing. They`re bean counters, and it just pisses me off because consequently our kids go to see crap movies."
"(on Casino Royale (2006)) I always wanted to go back, because it`s the blueprint of Bond`s character. It`s the one where Fleming (Ian Fleming) really painted in the details of what Bond was about, so I was disappointed that it didn`t happen, but you can`t go around with that in your heart. It`s all such a game really, and you win some, you lose some, you`re there, you`re not there. Getting the part of Bond and playing the part of Bond was a blessing and a curse, which I think (Sean Connery) has spoken about, and I`m sure Daniel (Daniel Craig) is just getting the full taste of right now. So, you know, one can really only look at the blessings in life."
I think that all the films I`ve ever made are personal, even James Bond, because it`s so much of myself, so much of who I am as a man and as an actor. You have to invest yourself in every character that you portray.
"(on why he thinks he would have regretted winning the James Bond role in 1986) It`s a role better suited to someone who is in his 40s, old enough to have the confidence and the sophistication and strength to be able to stand there and just let the moment sit. Bond is a man with the greatest of confidence. And playing that takes practice. In 1986 I think I was 33 or something like that, and I still looked like a baby. Finally, I`m growing into this face of mine. That takes time."
"(on George Lazenby) George seems to be an unhappy camper about Bond. He gets pissy and spits the dummy out. Tim (Timothy Dalton) was fantastic. He really had the balls to go out there and play it on the nose - Ian Fleming undiluted. But where were the laughs? Sean (Sean Connery) was brilliant, he played it dead on the money. And Roger (Roger Moore) really made it his own and went for the laughs. I think those two were the best."
"I`ve been identified with James Bond or Thomas Crown for so long - suave, elegant, sophisticated men in suits. It`s like you`ve been giving the same performance for 20 years."
You`re not even allowed to show a bloody nipple. It`s pathetic. What Bond needs is a good, palpable killing sequence and a good sex scene - and it doesn`t have to be graphic, you can use your imagination. We had a good one in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) - a really classy, sexy scene.
"When you look at Ian Fleming`s work, it`s there on the page. The martinis, the drugs, the cigarettes, the casino, the blood on the hands. But they never went there. Hopefully, they will go there with Daniel (Daniel Craig). They have the product, they have the man, and I`m sure they will."
"It never felt real to me. I never felt I had complete ownership over Bond. Because you`d have these stupid one-liners - which I loathed - and I always felt phony doing them. I`d look at myself in the suit and tie and think, "What the heck am I doing here?" Such sentiments were nothing new. That was always the frustrating thing about the role. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson play it so safe. The pomposity and rigmarole that they put directors through is astounding . . . I can do anything I want to do now. I`m not beholden to them or anyone. I`m not shackled by some contracted image."
lol
:)
Very interesting. But I just don't buy it. His 'acting', when he was given the occasional chance was just awful.
The producers let Brosnan take the blame? Where are you getting your information from? The producers have done no such thing. As has been mentioned, Brosnan wasn't the best actor out there but he was serviceable as, he was highly popular, made Bond relevant again and brought the series a lot of money. However, the quality of his movies lay square at the feet of the writers, directors and the producers and the producers have acknowledged largely where they went wrong and have been making positive changes to bring back some class to the series.
Hey, I admit Brozza wasn't the greatest of actors but I don't think his acting was always that bad - in fact there were times when I thought he was really good.
-Graveyard scene
-"in the end you're just a bank robber...nothing more than a common thief"
-Kaulfman
-M's office in GE
-opening castle scene in TWINE/PTS/"I never miss"
-the bridge sequence in DAD
I thought these were a few examples of moments when Broz delivered a good performance.
Very interesting. But I just don't buy it. His 'acting', when he was given the occasional chance was just awful.
I understand all that. After the long gap they needed a hit and so they played it safe. I still think GE could and should have been a better movie but I certainly understand the reason why they went down the formulaic route. However, after that I think they did try and take it in a slightly different direction, particularly with TWINE. The problem was that the screenplays and directing and the lead actor himself were also pretty weak.
For my money TND is Brosnan's best film. It's parred back without too much flab or tedious nostalgia. It flags towards the end but overall his best effort, which still leaves it near the very bottom of my rankings.
Interestingly I saw some of SF with my mother last night and she thought Dan was "awful with a silly run". I think she still prefers Pierce :-S
I think @dkem91 is right here. After a big hiatus, Bond needed to be back in full force to survive. EON didn't want to go the dark/gritty route (as it didn't pay off too well financially when they did it with Tim) so they chose to do a Connery, Moore mix with Pierce and bring back Bond to the Cold War for a little bit of GE, then have theatrical villains for the latter parts of his era and some crazy stunts like days of old, not concerned with being realistic. Whether it was a good or bad decision, it was needed for the time.
That was the first time a read Brosnan talking about Fleming's novels. Even if he didn't prove to have read all the novels (as Dalton and Craig did) at least he read Casino Royale.
I think EON (rightly) recognised Brozza's limitations.
The DC era is ample evidence that they were more than happy to do something a bit different.