Pierce Brendan Brosnan (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor. He achieved worldwide fame playing James Bond in four James Bond films from 1995 to 2002: GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002). He has also received two Golden Globes nominations for the television series Nancy Astor (1982) and the film The Matador (2005).
After leaving school at 16, Brosnan trained in commercial illustration before attending the Drama Centre London for three years. Following a stage acting career, he rose to popularity in the television series Remington Steele (1982–1987).
After its conclusion, Brosnan appeared in films, including The Fourth Protocol (1987), his break out role was in The Lawnmower Man (1992) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). Post-Bond, Brosnan toplined other major films including Dante's Peak (1997) and the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and has starred in The Ghost Writer (2010), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), The November Man (2014), Mamma Mia! (2008) and its sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020). In 2022, Brosnan played Dr. Kent Nelson / Doctor Fate in the DC Extended Universe film Black Adam. Additionally, Brosnan narrated the 2008 Thomas & Friends film The Great Discovery. In 2025 he starred in the movie The Thursday Murder Club and in Guy Ritchie's crime drama series MobLand.
In 1996, he and American film producer Beau St. Clair founded the production company Irish DreamTime. He is also known for charitable work and environmental activism. In 1997, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry. In 2020, he was listed at No. 15 on The Irish Times list of the greatest Irish film actors.
Early life Pierce Brendan Brosnan was born on 16 May 1953 in Drogheda, County Louth, the only child of May Smith and Thomas Brosnan, a carpenter. For 11 years, he lived in Navan, County Meath, and said in 1999 that he considers it to be his hometown. His father abandoned the family when Brosnan was an infant. When he was four years old, his mother moved to London to work as a nurse. From then on, he was largely brought up by his maternal grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith. After their deaths, he lived with an aunt and then an uncle, but was subsequently sent to live in a boarding house run by a woman named Eileen. He later said, "Childhood was fairly solitary. I never knew my father. He left when I was an infant. [...] To be Irish Catholic in the 1950s, and have a marriage which was not there, a father who was not there [...] the mother, the wife suffered greatly. My mother was very courageous. She took the bold steps to go away and be a nurse in England. Basically wanting a better life for her and myself. My mother came home once a year, twice a year."
Brosnan was brought up in a Catholic family, and educated in a local school run by the De La Salle Brothers while serving as an altar boy. He left Ireland on 12 August 1964 and went to Scotland to be reunited with his mother and her new husband, William Carmichael, at their home in Longniddry. Carmichael took Brosnan to see a James Bond film for the first time (Goldfinger) at the age of 11. They later moved back to London, where Brosnan was educated at Elliott School, Putney, now known as Ark Putney Academy. When discussing his transition from Ireland to England, he said, "When you go to a very large city, a metropolis like London, as an Irish boy of 10, life suddenly moves pretty fast. [...] And you're Irish. And they make you feel it; the British have a wonderful way of doing that, and I had a certain deep sense of being an outsider." His nickname at school was simply "Irish".
After leaving school at 16, Brosnan decided to be a painter and began training in commercial illustration at Saint Martin's School of Art in London.Jonathan Jones (30 September 2011). Saint Martins emerges blinking in bright new home. But is it art?: King's Cross premises a far cry from Soho 'hell', but some students fear college will have lost its charm . The Guardian. Retrieved August 2013. While attending a rehearsal for a workshop at the Ovalhouse, he saw a fire eater teaching people how to eat fire and decided to join in.Pierce Brosnan: questions from the floor : guardian.co.uk Guardian News and Media – 18 March 2003 He trained for three years as an actor at the Drama Centre London. Describing the feeling of becoming an actor and the influence it had on his life, he said, "When I found acting, or when acting found me, it was a liberation. It was a stepping stone into another life, away from a life that I had, and acting was something I was good at, something which was appreciated. That was a great satisfaction in my life."
Career Early career Graduating from the Drama Centre in 1975, Brosnan began working as an acting assistant stage manager at the York Theatre Royal, making his acting debut in Wait Until Dark. Within six months, he was selected by the playwright Tennessee Williams to play the role of McCabe in the British première of The Red Devil Battery Sign (billed as "Pierce Brosman").Carrick, Peter (2002). Pierce Brosnan. Citadel Press, p18–36. . His performance caused a stir in London and Brosnan still has the telegram sent by Williams, stating only "Thank God for you, my dear boy".Membery, York (2002). Pierce Brosnan: The Biography. Virgin Books. . In 1977, he was picked by Franco Zeffirelli to appear in the play Filumena by Eduardo De Filippo opposite Joan Plowright and Frank Finlay.Obit of Helen Montagu. 8 January 2004. The Independent. Retrieved 27 August 2010
Brosnan continued his career making brief appearances in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and The Mirror Crack'd (1980), as well as early television performances in The Professionals, Murphy's Stroke, and Play for Today. He became a television star in the United States with his leading role in the popular miniseries Manions of America. He followed this in 1982 with the BBC's nine-part miniseries Nancy Astor (which aired in America on Masterpiece Theatre) that dramatised the life of Lady Astor, the first woman to sit in the British Parliament. His portrayal of Robert Gould Shaw II garnered him a 1985 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1982, Brosnan moved to Southern California and rose in popularity in the United States playing the title role in the NBC romantic, often-comedic detective series Remington Steele. The Washington Post noted that same year that Brosnan "could make it as a young James Bond". After Remington Steele ended in 1987, Brosnan went on to appear in, among other projects, The Fourth Protocol (1987), a Cold War thriller in which he starred alongside Michael Caine, The Deceivers, the mini-series James Clavell's Noble House (both 1988), and The Lawnmower Man (1992). In 1992, he shot a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde, playing a reporter for Auto World magazine with Jennifer Love Hewitt playing his daughter, which never aired. In 1993, he played a supporting role in the comedy film Mrs. Doubtfire. He appeared in several television films, including Victim of Love (1991), Death Train (1993) and Night Watch (1995), a spy thriller set in Hong Kong. In 2003, Brosnan was awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Irish Film.
James Bond 1986 offer
Brosnan first met James Bond film producer Albert R. Broccoli on the sets of For Your Eyes Only, as his first wife, Cassandra Harris, had been cast as Countess Lisl von Schlaf, mistress to Milos Columbo. Broccoli said, "if he can act ... he's my guy" to inherit the role of Bond from Roger Moore. It was reported by both Entertainment Tonight and the National Enquirer that Brosnan was going to inherit another role of Moore's, that of Simon Templar in The Saint. Brosnan denied the rumours in July 1993 but added, "it's still languishing there on someone's desk in Hollywood."
In 1986, NBC cancelled Remington Steele. As Brosnan was offered the role of James Bond, the publicity improved Remington Steeles ratings and it was renewed, contractually requiring Brosnan to return to the show. This caused Eon Productions to have to look elsewhere for the new 007. The producers instead hired Timothy Dalton for The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989). While Brosnan was reluctant to discuss losing the Bond role, in part because Dalton was a friend, he appeared in Diet Coke commercials portraying what the Los Angeles Times described as "a dashing Bond-like character", and NBC advertised Noble House with Brosnan dressed in a Bond-like tuxedo.
Being Bond Legal disputes between the Bond producers and the studio over distribution rights resulted in the cancellation of a proposed third Dalton film in 1991 and put the Bond series on a hiatus for several years. After the legal issues had been resolved, Dalton decided not to return for a third film. On 7 June 1994, Brosnan was announced as the fifth actor to play Bond.
Brosnan was signed for a three-film Bond deal with the option of a fourth. The first, 1995's GoldenEye, grossed US$350 million worldwide, the fourth-highest worldwide gross of any film in 1995, making it the most successful Bond film since Moonraker (1979), adjusted for inflation. It holds a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Metacritic holds it at 65%. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4, saying that Brosnan's Bond was "somehow more sensitive, more vulnerable, more psychologically complete" than the previous ones, also commenting on Bond's "loss of innocence" since previous films. James Berardinelli described Brosnan as "a decided improvement over his immediate predecessor" with a "flair for wit to go along with his natural charm", but added that "fully one-quarter of Goldeneye is momentum-killing padding."
Brosnan returned as Bond in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies, 1999's The World Is Not Enough, and 2002's Die Another Day: all three movies received mixed reviews, but were a success at the box office; Brosnan himself subsequently criticised many aspects of his fourth Bond movie. During the promotion for the fourth movie, he mentioned that he would like to continue his role as James Bond: "I'd like to do another, sure. Connery did six. Six would be a number, then never come back."
When accepting the Bond role, Brosnan asked Eon Productions to be allowed to work on other projects between Bond films. The request was granted, and for every Bond film, Brosnan appeared in at least two other mainstream films, including several he produced, playing a wide range of roles, ranging from a scientist in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), to the title role in Grey Owl (1999), which documents the life of Englishman Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, one of Canada's first conservationists.
In 1996, Brosnan formed a film production company called Irish DreamTime along with producing partner and longtime friend Beau St. Clair. Brosnan and St. Clair released Irish DreamTime's first production, The Nephew, in 1998. One year later, the company's second studio project, The Thomas Crown Affair, was released and met both critical and box office success.