An old television friend pops up in the opening gambit of the latest James Bond movie “The World is Not Enough.”
Bond is about to make a money transaction as part of his mission when a lovely secretary enters the room. The usually unflappable agent does an amusing, un-Bond-like double-take.
The gesture reminds one briefly of a television hero: Remington Steele, the 1980s character who pretended to be the head of a detective agency but in reality was a mysterious con man who inadvertently stepped into a fictional role created by the company’s real private eye, Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist).
The actor behind both Bond and Steele admits there might have been a slight overlap from one character to the other.
“There is a consciousness to all of this, believe it or not. But it’s how much you let it out of the bag and how brave you want to be,” said Pierce Brosnan. “You don’t want to distract people.”
Brosnan, who plays 007 for the third time in “World,” has been careful about how he assesses the role of the British government agent whose humor is more sardonic, dry and almost cruel at times, as opposed to Steele’s ironic, wry, self-deprecating wit.
“That touch and that timing and that stuff is still there, but in a man who’s a little older and a little wiser,” said Brosnan, 46.
Brosnan, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles while promoting “World,” the 19th 007 film, has been careful not to let aspects of Steele bleed into Bond. But Steele-like tendencies have snuck into his Bond before.
In “Tomorrow Never Dies,” Brosnan’s second 007 film, Bond drives a car by remote control while ducked in the back seat. The look of boyish glee on his face was reminiscent of Steele, whom Brosnan played from 1983 to ’87 on NBC.
A Steele/Bond merge was more pronounced in a commercial for the American Express credit card that Brosnan appeared in as Bond with Desmond Llewelyn, who plays longtime gadget guru Q in the 007 series.
Brosnan has been funny before, in “Mars Attacks,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” But those were supporting roles; he hasn’t been in a star vehicle with that kind of light comic tone since “Steele,” although, through his production company, Brosnan said he is currently sifting through projects that include comedies.
“I haven’t allowed myself to (be funny). I do it in increments in Bond, and the one-liners sat more easily on my lips this time than they’ve done in the other Bond movies,” said Brosnan.
Brosnan realizes he’s just a wisecrack away from satire, thanks to the Bond litany of one-liners that have become a staple of the character. That’s another reason why he’s tried to play Bond straight since being introduced as the character with 1995’s “GoldenEye.”
“There’s a part of me that is itching to kind of send the whole thing up. And it’s a breath away from parody in some respects,” Brosnan said. “But if you start from that point in the character, then you may as well be doing Austin Powers.
“So you have to kind of pull back and start, for me, (at a) reality base, that this man does exist in the consciousness of the world, in the psyche of the world. There are commanders, and there are men who work for (CIA-like British government agencies). They may not be like James Bond, but there are guys out there . . . who do have these attributes of being killing machines.”
Steele-like humor isn’t the only wrinkle Brosnan now feels more comfortable injecting into the character. Bond, who has been nearly indestructible throughout his 37 years of cinematic existence, seems a little more fallible this go-around, partly because of a shoulder injury he sustains early on in “World.”
But it’s also because of the relationship Bond shares with one of the latest “Bond Girls,” Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), an heiress seemingly in a fragile state because of a traumatic past kidnapping at the hands of the villainous Renard (Robert Carlyle), who is back in her life with a new, diabolical plot.
(Bond also gets involved with Dr. Christmas Jones, played by Denise Richards as a nuclear weapons expert who prefers tank tops and short-shorts to lab coats, proving some things 007 never change.)
Brosnan said that setting Bond up to reveal more vulnerability and less indestructibility in “World” was partly due to a “better script,” more confidence in himself because of his third role as the character, and feeling more of a collaborator with director Michael Apted, who “listened to what I had to say.”
“I said, `I cannot do another “Tomorrow Never Dies,” ‘ which is just wall-to-wall action. Great for the kids, they love it all, but where’s the story? Where’s the man, where’s the fallibility of the character, where’s the humanity of the man, where is the man?
“There’s got to be character there. There’s got to be scenes which can propel me from scene to scene and through the action sequences. And if you do not have that emotional contact going out the gate, then you lose your way pretty quickly. And if I lose my way, then the audience is dead in the water as well.”
Brosnan’s contract called for three 007 movies with an option for a fourth. When he did interviews for “The Thomas Crown Affair” this summer, the assumption was Brosnan didn’t want to play the character again, partly because he was worried he would forever be typecast. But Brosnan insisted he never “said a dickybird to anybody” about leaving the role after “World.”
“If they wish to employ me again, I would wish to stand up there again and do Bond. I love playing the role.”
When it was noted that Brosnan once hinted he didn’t want to be playing a superheroic secret agent when he was 50 years old, Brosnan joked:
“Well, if I do another one, I won’t be a 50-year-old Bond; I’ll be a 48- or 49-year-old Bond. Then I just might creep in with a 50-, 51-year-old Bond . . . if I don’t do anything damaging to myself, I think I could go out of the gate again.”
How about “again and again”?
“Well, let’s just say `again.’ Let’s not be greedy.”
