Pierce Brosnan has what grandmothers might call a “twinkle”. Or at least the kind of face that would make cartoon animals hit themselves with enormous mallets while their eyes bulge out of their heads. And he knows this. Obviously. You don’t play James Bond and get voted the Sexiest Man Alive at the relatively late age of 48 without cottoning on. And you can also tell because when I ask Brosnan about being a famously very good-looking dude, he barely blinks. There’s no faux modesty. No admonishing. Just a sharp nod of recognition. Water is wet. Climate change is real. Pierce Brosnan – then, now, and tomorrow – looks absolutely fantastic.
“I was taught in drama school to transform,” he explains, when I ask whether he’d ever wanted to not be so famously good-looking. “But then I went to America and had too good a time playing myself. Or trying to play myself, which is not an easy thing to do. And I had responsibilities as a man, as a father, and I found employment easily.” Just think of the hits: Remington Steele; Mrs Doubtfire; the second-best volcano disaster movie of 1997, Dante’s Peak. “Sometimes I made choices that I shouldn’t have made. I was dealing with the self, and that image of the self. But as I’ve gotten older, it’s free reign.”
We’re here, alongside the British actor Amir El-Masry, to talk Giant, a spiky yet inspirational biopic of the spiky yet inspirational boxer Naseem Hamed, aka Prince Naseem. El-Masry is a cocky, swaggering Hamed and Brosnan plays his trainer, a by-all-accounts gentle and compassionate Irishman named Brendan Ingle. The actor donned a prosthetic nose and hairpiece for the role, spending hours in the makeup chair each morning de-Brosnaning himself. It’s resulted in arguably his most sensitive and thoughtful performance in years.
“It’s such a delight to shake off that image that you might have created,” the 72-year-old explains. “Or that corner that you’ve painted yourself into. It was fun to create that image, but it’s also fun to uncreate it.”
Anyone with memories of the Nineties will remember Prince Naseem, a boxing superstar, a working class Muslim kid from Sheffield done good, and a man as difficult as he was spellbinding. Over the course of his career he landed 31 knockout blows, and lost just one of his 36 professional fights. He was also a brilliant showman: he once entered the ring on a flying carpet, because why not? “He was one of my heroes growing up,” says the 35-year-old El-Masry, an actor perhaps best known for his role as the secretly raucous hedge funder Usman on Industry. “To see someone like that be a world champion was incredibly inspiring. He was an exceptional role model.”
I have a great wife, who’s given me wings to fly. I’m a Catholic, and my faith is very strong. And you have to be as tough as old boots to be in the game this long
To its credit, Giant explores the thin line between confidence and arrogance, with Ingle instilling incredible self-belief in a young sportsman, then being alienated by his increasing volatility. El-Masry says he understands the importance of confidence, but also where someone can get lost in it. In acting, he says, “you need to have a thick skin, but also know the reasons you’re in it – you need to have a love of the craft, and not any ulterior motive”.
Brosnan says that his own self-belief has ebbed and flowed over the years. “It’s such a capricious game to be an actor. That black dog of doubt sits beside you, but it’s also what spurs you on. You’re constantly constructing yourself and then destroying yourself, in the best possible way.” Where does he get his self-belief? “Family, for sure,” he says. “I have a great wife, who’s given me wings to fly. I’m a Catholic, and my faith is very strong. And you have to be as tough as old boots to be in the game this long.”
Brosnan is dressed in a checked jacket over a black turtleneck, with a gold watch on his wrist. He commands the hotel suite we’re in – everyone here seems to cleave inwards to him, from El-Masry (relaxed in a leather jacket and jeans), to the various film publicists dotted about the room. It’s mainly that voice of his that does it. It burrs and purrs and grips you – I’m sure he could add gravitas to a train station announcement.
“He’s very magnetic,” El-Masry laughs. “There are very few actors who I can say are role models not just because of acting, but because of how they carry themselves. Pierce carries himself as a man who knows where his values and morals are.” On the Giant set, El-Masry dislocated his finger while preparing for a scene, and Brosnan immediately rushed over and ordered a short delay on filming. “He was like, ‘forget everything – health is wealth.’ He has his priorities straight, because you always worry in situations like that if production is going to be upset with you.”
Ingle and Hamed were linked by their experiences as outsiders in the Sheffield of the Eighties – Ingle as an Irish immigrant, and Hamed as a Yemeni Muslim – and Brosnan and El-Masry say their own struggles somewhat mirror those of both men.
“Growing up, I thought I could be anything and do anything,” El-Masry says. He was raised in Acton, London, to an Egyptian family, and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before finding work in films such as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and series like The Crown (where he played Mohamed Al-Fayed). “But then the industry quickly tells you who you are and they box you in. You’re always thinking, how do I get out of that box? And it’s not just race, but religion, and even how you carry yourself.”
“Naseem and Brendan were two men who burned with a deep passion,” Brosnan adds, “and who knew what it was like to be kicked to the curb by society.” Brosnan was raised predominantly in Navan, County Neath, by his grandparents, his mother having left for London to work as a nurse. Brosnan’s father had walked out on them when he was an infant, and it wasn’t until Brosnan was 11 that he joined his mother in London to start life anew. It was a difficult transition.
“I was a boy coming from the fields and the banks of the River Boyne and trying to assimilate,” he remembers. “And having to navigate this new land.” He found shades of his background in some of Ingle’s speeches in the film, which talk about hatred, prejudice and the feelings of being isolated. “And I saw myself in Naseem, too – this young lad with so much ambition, who’s trying to make his place in the world, but also aware that he’s stepping into the lion’s den.”
Where the parallels stop for both men, though, is when it comes to thoughts of retirement. As is traditional for many sportsmen, Hamed retired early – at the age of 28. “It’s different for athletes, and Naz had his own reasons for doing that, and I can’t fault the man,” El-Masry says. “But to retire from acting at 28, to me, just means you don’t love what it is that you’re doing. I know for sure that I’ve not got everything out of acting that I need to get out of it.”
Brosnan nods. “It’s the creative life that keeps me alive,” he says. “I’m 72, time is moving on for me, and I can feel the tick of it. I’ve been down this path a long way now. But what else do I do but really live the life and the time that I have left?”
He hopes Giant instills the same values in young audiences. “I think the story of Naz and Brendan teaches us to have courage and belief in yourself,” he says. “With a good heart, good mind, good passion and good discipline, you can do anything you choose to do. I was lucky to start my life as an actor in community theatre in Brixton, south London. And once I found that, I found a home, and great strength. I’m hoping Giant will inspire some lads and lasses, too.”
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