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Comments
As much as he gets criticised for being a lightweight actor in his films I believe the problem would have been far worse had he been cast in the mid-80s. He only had Remington Steele and one film (as leading roles, I mean) under his belt so he hadn't accumulated a lot of acting experience. In addition, he has stated that the death of his wife allowed him a greater gravity to bring to his acting than he would have had before.
From a practical point of view he wouldn't have had Martin Campbell to direct him in his debut which I think would have hurt him a lot - he really helped Brosnan appear tougher in his performance. He also may have been a little too influenced by Moore - despite technical faults the "magic carpet ride" in TLD was laregly abandoned because it didn't fit in with Dalton's Bond and the confrontation with Pushkin was only written in because of Dalton. Also, Brosnan followed Dalton's lead by having a lot of dialogue jetisoned so he appeared tougher and more a man of action - who knows if he would have thought to request that if Dalton hadn't done it first? To say nothing about trying to have a more psychologically nuanced performance - again, would he have attempted that if Dalton hadn't done it first? Finally, he was pretty boyish and even more manorexic back then than he was at the time of GE.
All in all, aging a little more, gaining acting experience, and having some tragedy in his life certainly helped him. But I'm guessing that what the producers learned from Dalton's tenure helped a lot. I also think that Campbell was probably a great deal responsible for helping Brosnan craft his version of Bond. I was pleasantly surprised at Brosnan in GE; I think I would have been let down to see him in TLD.