BROSNAN ENJOYING BOND'S DIVIDENDS : ACTOR TAKES ON WIDE VARIETY OF ROLES, AND HE'S EVEN WEARING PRODUCER'S HAT.Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Writer You'd think that having the lead role in a worldwide blockbuster hit like ``GoldenEye'' would mean that a once-struggling actor could just kick back and relax. Not so Pierce Brosnan, who deliberately set out make sure that his future opportunities would not be limited to the James Bond franchise by pushing himself to do roles in as wide a variety of other movie vehicles as possible. Maybe that explains why he's suddenly everywhere at once. Take ``Dante's Peak,'' the volcano disaster movie. Brosnan plays a thinking man's action role as a volcanologist (that's a scientist, not a relative of Mr. Spock) who has to convince an Idaho town that their mountain is about to blow. In ``The Mirror Has Two Faces,'' he's an object of desire for Barbra Streisand's college professor. In Tim Burton's alien invasion
And next month, he returns to the James Bond role when filming begins on the yet-untitled follow-up to ``GoldenEye goldeneye or whistler Either of two species of small, yellow-eyed diving ducks that produce a whistling sound with their rapidly beating wings. The common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) breeds throughout the Northern Hemisphere; Barrow's goldeneye (B. .'' ``I'm running on thin air at times, but it's been intentional,'' said Brosnan, 44, who also has a newborn son with journalist Keely Shaye Smith Shaye Smith is an American journalist. She married Pierce Brosnan in 2001 after his wife Cassandra passed away, and together they had two children. Brosnan had two children with Cassandra. . ``I knew that if `GoldenEye' was a success, and it was, I'd have to work doubly hard to get other stuff in the can, so that I wasn't just stamped with being Bond.'' ``It's such a high-profile character. I knew that for the rest of my life, whatever I did, I'd be Bond. But as an actor, I needed to do other things.'' From Steele to Bond The blue-eyed, Irish-born Brosnan gained widespread U.S. recognition with his 1982-87 TV series, ``Remington Steele Remington Steele was an American television series first broadcast on the NBC network from 1982 to 1987. It starred Stephanie Zimbalist as private detective Laura Holt and Pierce Brosnan as a roguish thief, "Remington Steele". ,'' but he says the box-office clout he gained with ``GoldenEye'' has definitely raised his profile. One result is movies such as ``Dante's Peak,'' in which his presence is expected to help sell tickets in the race against Universal's upcoming ``Volcano,'' which stars Tommy Lee Jones For the musician, see . Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and director. Biography Early life Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Clyde C. . Brosnan says the special effects special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. are the real star of ``Dante's Peak,'' but he doesn't downplay his own role, which required him and the other actors to create the illusion of being threatened by a volcano that wasn't really there. ``You know that your acting partner is this volcano, and you hope that they're going to create a really wonderful, mean, brutal one,'' said Brosnan. ``But you have to work very hard at sustaining this illusion. The more sincere you are, and the more attention you're paying to the role, the better it comes across.'' ``I just saw the movie myself, and I fell for the illusion. I just lost myself in it - I believed the volcano was there and that it was erupting. It left me gasping for breath.'' The movie was filmed partly on Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. soundstages and partly on location in the mountain town of Wallace, Idaho Wallace is a historic city in the Panhandle region of the U.S. state of Idaho and the county seat of Shoshone CountyGR6 in the Silver Valley mining district. . ``We really overtook the town, all through the summer,'' said Brosnan. ``And then we ended up covering the whole place in ash.'' The inconvenience to the townspeople translated into a lot of public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most work for Brosnan as the leading man. ``I was out there every day with the people of the town, having coffee and ice cream, shaking hands and holding babies,'' he said. Despite a background that includes acting in such tony English productions as the BBC's ``The Astors,'' Brosnan says it's no surprise to him that his career path has been swept up in the current craze for disaster films. ``I love these kind of films, and I always have,'' he said. ``I remember seeing `The Towering Inferno' and `The Poseidon Adventure.' It was thrilling and great fun.'' Even so, at the height of his popularity, Brosnan has quietly invested himself in a more traditional, character-driven form of storytelling, using the influence he's gained with ``GoldenEye'' to realize a long-held dream of returning to Ireland as a movie producer. ``I've always wanted to support young filmmakers, to put something back into the business,'' said Brosnan. ``It's only yesterday that I was struggling, trying to perform and to make ends meet, and I do remember all that.'' Meet the producer His new company, Irish Dream Time, is based at United Artists, which holds the Bond franchise. Development money from UA got the company off the ground, and Brosnan and his producing partner then raised $5 million in Ireland to fund their first picture, ``The Nephew.'' It stars Donal McCann in the story of a rural Irishman who discovers he has a nephew he never knew about, a half-white, half African-American teen-ager raised in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of who comes to stay with him. Brosnan plays a local bartender whose daughter gets involved with the youth. ``It's kind of a quiet, serious piece about the secrets and grudges between these two men,'' said Brosnan. ``I've always wanted to produce my own films, and hopefully Bond has given me a certain cachet cachet /ca·chet/ (ka-sha´) a disk-shaped wafer or capsule enclosing a dose of medicine. ca·chet n. An edible wafer capsule used for enclosing an unpleasant-tasting drug. that will allow me to do that.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Jeremy Foley This article is about the athletic director. For the actor, see Jeremy Foley (actor). Jeremy N. Foley (born December 1 1952 in Washington, D.C., USA) is the athletic director for the Florida Gators athletic program at the University of Florida. , left, Pierce Brosnan with Jamie Renee Smith, and Linda Hamilton try to outrun out·run tr.v. out·ran , out·run, out·run·ning, out·runs 1. a. To run faster than. b. To escape from: outrun one's creditors. 2. an erupting volcano in ``Dante's Peak,'' the season's first of two volcano movies. |
|
||||||||||||||

Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion