Pierce Brosnan : Tarantino wanted me to be James Bond in Casino Royale

Apr 19 2010 by Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

DANIEL Craig has a licence to thrill as James Bond.

But if Quentin Tarantino had had his way, it would still have been Pierce Brosnan at the poker table in Casino Royale.

With Tarantino in the director’s chair, of course.

Pierce reflects on what might have been, but there are few regrets.

“Quentin and I sank about 12 Apple Martinis,” he recalls. “I could hardly move off my chair.

“He was having a good old rant and rave that I was the only one to do Casino Royale.

“But it wasn’t meant to be.

“It’s funny because, when I did Goldeneye, Barbara Broccoli sent me a first edition of Casino Royale and wrote in the sleeve: ‘To new beginnings’.

“The best man won,” he adds philosophically.

Haunted by the memory of his predecessors, Pierce has been quoted as saying he never felt he really nailed the role of the suave, but deadly, spy.

He got off to a blistering start in Goldeneye but his work was undermined by increasingly gimmick-reliant scripts.

Since then the 56 year-old has combined starring roles with character parts to ensure career longevity.

“I’ve played leads and had some success but I want to work,” he says.

“If that means supporting roles then great, as long as they are with fantastic people, and with fantastic scripts.”

His greatest post-Bond success has been in the musical Mamma Mia! although he was pilloried for his warbling.

He roars with laughter when someone suggests he was less Bruce Springsteen and more Bruce Forsyth.

“They didn’t employ me for my singing,” he says, flashing a grin.

“I came to it as an acting role. It was just about having a good time, being a dad, falling in love with this woman and trying to win her back with a song.

“The first review I read said: ‘Pierce Brosnan couldn’t hold a note if it had the Queen’s head on it’.

He took comfort from the fact that co-stars Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard were just as intimidated at having to flaunt their vocal shortcomings.

“As the three of us stood in Air studios,” he admits. “I was singing my SOS when I looked across at the other two guys. They were equally s***ing themselves. We were all caught in the lights together!”

It is more likely the genial Irishman was cast for his charisma, which also attracted the attention of director Roman Polanski when he was casting the role of a Blair-alike Prime Minister in The Ghost.

Out this week, it is a tense thriller about a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) tackling the memoirs of Adam Lang.