NOT SHAKEN, JUST STIRRED EX-BOND PIERCE BROSNAN EMBRACES HIS ROLE AS BURNED-OUT HIT MAN.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

There are two ways to cope with unwelcome professional news.

There's the Pierce Brosnan way, which is all graciousness and, at least publicly, good thoughts.

And then there's the Julian Noble way, which involves extended drunkenness, whoring, a few murders and walking through public areas wearing nothing but bikini briefs and snakeskin boots.

Lucky Brosnan gets to have it both ways.

The recently decommissioned James Bond plays losing-it hit man Julian in ``The Matador,'' a wickedly comic morality tale co-starring Greg Kinnear as a troubled businessman Julian disturbingly befriends during an assignment in Mexico. The film opens today.

Lewd, lonely and on the brink of a nervous breakdown, Julian shows Kinnear's Danny Wright some tricks of his deadly trade, tries to cajole him into helping with an assassination, and establishes a bond that, many months and miles later, will force both of them into making life-altering, and life-threatening, decisions.

It's Brosnan's first screen appearance since Daniel Craig was officially announced as his replacement in the Bond series of spy spectaculars. And a more dissolute, disreputable and dislikable character to break with the suave, super-competent 007 image would be hard to imagine.

``For me as the actor that was about to step onto the stage, carrying the baggage that I do of Remington Steele or Thomas Crown or Bond, I think this was a wonderful way of deconstructing all of that, playing with it and turning it on its ear,'' says the 52-year-old Irishman, looking even scruffier than he does in ``The Matador'' with a full, George Custer- style goatee grown for the film he's currently shooting, a Civil War-era Western called ``Seraphim Falls.''

``It was great fun, great fun,'' Brosnan adds. ``Julian is a complete vulgarian, pathetic son of a bitch, cold, lethal, arrested development. The script put it down for me, I just had to follow the map. Then I took from my own sensing and intuition and people I've known. Guys from South London, mostly. And once he kind of dug in, Julian, he took off. He was just kind of free flow.''

Filmed entirely in Mexico and produced by Brosnan's own company, Irish DreamTime, ``Matador'' was under way just as a long, tortured year of rumors and counter-rumors started up regarding the future of the Bond franchise. Brosnan had revived the fusty, formulaic series by starring in four 007 international blockbusters, beginning with 1995's ``GoldenEye.'' But Eon Productions, which owns the film rights to Ian Fleming's legendary British Secret Service agent, either didn't want to meet Brosnan's salary demands for a fifth outing or considered him too old for the role, depending on whose speculation you listened to.

As well, over the past decade, Brosnan had often groused to the press that he'd like to see the Bond films take a more realistic, harder-edged and less-predictable path than the commercially proven formula involving big stunts, bodacious babes and impossible gadgets that the series locked into when Sean Connery was still playing the role in the mid-1960s.

``Well, that legacy's now left to Daniel Craig!'' Brosnan says with a hearty laugh. ``So, fair play to him. May he have the greatest of success, and I'm sure he will. He's a fine actor, Daniel. He has big shoes to fill, in many respects. But he'll do just fine.''

Brosnan sounds sincere when he explains why he thinks the younger English actor - who's currently appearing in Steven Spielberg's ``Munich'' and starred earlier this year in the acclaimed crime drama ``Layer Cake'' - will make an excellent Bond.

``He has an intensity, and a great voice,'' Brosnan observes. ``He's very fearless, and he's got a good body of work in the cinema already. They wanted to make a shift, play with more character.''

Asked if he regrets not having been the one to initiate that shift, Brosnan says, slightly less convincingly than before, ``No, I don't really have strong regrets.''

And he refuses to complain about what appeared, from the outside anyway, like an extended period of being jerked around by Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson over whether he'd get to take up that license to kill for a fifth time.

``I was powerless to do anything,'' Brosnan tersely states. ``The chapter is now closed. Over. I've said all I've got to say about it. It was a marvelous time, a marvelous decade. Anything else would be'' - he sighs - ``fruitless.''

The past year, Brosnan insists, has actually been quite joyous, between cutting loose in ``The Matador'' and then not doing much of anything but enjoying himself.

``Oh, I've had the time of my life,'' he says. ``I took a year off after 'The Matador.' I stayed at my house in Hawaii. Went sailing, went fishing, painted, played with my boys, hung out and did some gardening. Just got on with life, y'know?''

Brosnan has two young sons with his second wife, broadcaster Keely Shaye Smith. His first wife, actress Cassandra Harris, succumbed to cancer a day following their 11th wedding anniversary, in December 1991. < Brosnan's ability to roll with life's punches was formed long before that. Abandoned by his father while still a tot, he was raise by his Irish grandparents and other relatives while his mother sought work in England. He did not go to live with her and her new husband until the age of 10.

And that Bond thing was a problem long before this year. Brosnan was the top choice to take over the role from the definitely past-his-prime Roger Moore in the 1980s, but could not get released from his contract to play the TV eye-for-hire Remington Steele in order to do so.

What some may forget is that, despite the idealized smoothy image those two most famous roles of his have imparted, Brosnan has often gone off the reservation to play creeps, losers, psychos and worse in such films as ``The Deceivers,'' ``The Lawnmower Man,'' ``The Tailor of Panama'' and ``Evelyn,'' to name but a few.

According to his Irish DreamTime partner Beau St. Clair, Brosnan is always on the lookout for something edgy and unpredictable to do.

``Generally, it's hard work for an iconic actor to reconceive himself in a new role,''says St. Clair, whose films with Brosnan include ``The Thomas Crown Affair,'' ``Evelyn''and the romantic comedy ``Laws of Attraction.'' ``But Pierce really wants different characters, so we try to stretch out in different directions with our films.''

``Matador'' came unexpectedly, as a writing sample from New York independent filmmaker Richard Shepard. He was hoping to work on the script for a sequel to the ``Thomas Crown'' heist film. But when St. Clair read the quirky ``Matador,'' she knew that her partner would want to star in it. So Irish DreamTime got the financing together, and the next thing he knew, the starving Shepard was directing again.

``Pierce literally was the first actor to read it, then came to me and said, 'I want to be in it,' '' Shepard recounts. ``Now, it could have been a horrible situation if he wasn't right for the role, but whatever baggage he brings to it helps the movie. The thing was whether he would really be willing to go for it. Would he wear a mustache with gray in it? Would he be vulnerable? Would he be pathetic? Or were we gonna have a conversation in three months where he'd say, 'Actually, I want to wear a suit and be nicer.' ''

Obviously, that conversation never occurred (although all involved admit that Julian's misanthropy was toned down slightly between first draft and shooting script). Although he won't cop to Julian moments in his real life, Brosnan says he can certainly empathize with the character.

``We all had those dark moments when the black dog just sits beside you and a crisis of confidence comes upon you,'' Brosnan says. ``How do you deal with that? There's a mild fascination from an actor's point of view with letting it all fall apart. But the reality of the situation that you may find yourself in as a working man disallows such thinking, and you have to be practical and find your way through it. But some people, their lives do fall apart.

``In life, I'm fairly cautious, I try to keep an even keel. I try not to fall apart, don't particularly want to go there.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) PIERCE BROSNAN

The former James Bond goes from suave man to hit man

(2 -- 3) A globe-trotting hit man (Pierce Brosnan, left) encounters a crestfallen businessman (Greg Kinnear) in a Mexico City bar, with unexpected results, in ``The Matador.''

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(4) Says Brosnan of his ``Matador'' role: ``Julian is a complete vulgarian ... cold, lethal, arrested development. The script put it down for me; I just had to follow the map.''