Recently, at his wife’s behest, Brosnan wrote down a list of 10 directors he still wants to work with. Wes Anderson is one name. Another conspicuous inclusion on the list is Denis Villeneuve, who’s best known for making the recent Dune movies and has signed on with Amazon to direct the first instalment in the next era of… James Bond. It’s a world Brosnan wouldn’t mind revisiting, he tells me. “Of course, people ask about Bond – ‘would you?’ and whatever – but that’s another man’s job. But the possibilities of working within that film, entertaining…” he says, pausing. Brosnan has a knack for withholding the final bits of his sentence, which infuses them with a kind of mystic wisdom. “So it’s going to be exciting to see what happens,” he continues. “I think everything changes, everything falls apart, so you just sit back and enjoy it all.”
Obviously, Brosnan won’t be cast as 007, but it now feels at least possible that there will be an extended Bond universe. In February of this year, the Broccoli family, which kept the MI6 agent under tight control for decades, gave Amazon creative control. If the company decides to create a sprawling network of Bond programming, like how Disney has built out Star Wars, could Brosnan fit in as a retired agent called back into action? “Sometimes you entertain it and sometimes you just move on,” he says.
But Brosnan isn’t that interested in trying to wring any more juice from his previous stint as 007. “It just really gets in the way of life,” he says. I ask him what that means.“It just means that I’ve said everything I have to say about it.”
Jacket, belt and trousers by Tom Ford. Turtleneck by Brioni. Shoes by Santoni. Watch by Omega. Sunglasses by Jacques Marie Mage.
Jacket and trousers by Connolly. Shirt, tie and shoes by Giorgio Armani. Sunglasses by Jacques Marie Mage.
After arranging his lunch plans with his son Dylan, a musician whose long, elegant figure emerges from the hallway wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and Doc Martens, Brosnan suggests we go out through the sliding glass door to get an even better look at the sea.
Ever since the fires that devastated Los Angeles in January this year, the family have been seriously considering selling their longtime home. Brosnan was shooting MobLand in the UK at the time of the blaze, and he remembers tracking the encroachment on his phone and imploring his family to evacuate. “[The house has] lived through too many fires,” Brosnan says. “There comes a time to say, ‘Enough.’”
At the edge of Brosnan’s property, right before it becomes a public beach, there is a metal gate with a pair of small chairs and a tiny fold-up table just outside it. We stand there and Brosnan points down the shore. “Steve McQueen lived just down this beach here,” he says. Then he turns until he’s almost looking straight back at his house. He indicates the relatively humble property immediately to the left of it. “Robert Redford owned that house there,” he says.
Now, as Brosnan thinks about leaving this stretch of beach, you can only imagine who might move in next, some Hollywood A-lister looking for a bit of peace. A helicopter flies above the water and Brosnan waves, as if even the pilots might appreciate a hello from James Bond.
“I had fun doing Remington Steele. I had fun playing Bond. I’ve had fun making up a career,” he says. “Trying to be egoless with it and take it all with a pinch of salt. Be as good as possible. To be the best you possibly can, to enjoy the company of everyone.”
