Pierce Brosnan regrets turning his back on the theatre after landing his role as James Bond.
The 72-year-old actor started his career onstage before winning a part in the TV show Remington Steele in the 1980s and then being signed up to play 007 in the mid-1990s.
He starred as the superspy in four films: GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day.
Daniel Craig took over the role after Brosnan, and the hunt is on for a new Bond after he stepped down as 007.
Brosnan has now revealed he wishes he had gone back to his theatre roots after ending his career-defining turn as the superspy, like his successor Craig did.
‘[My acting teacher Christopher Fettes] wanted me doing obscure 19th-century plays, but my dream was always movies,’ he told The Guardian.
‘I was impressed that Daniel had the bottle to go back out there. I thought: “Why the heck didn’t I?” You have to really want it, and I didn’t.’
He added: ‘It’s essential to be creative outside of Bond.’
Queer star Craig continued working in theatre during his breaks from making the 007 movies, taking on roles on Broadway, including star turns in productions of A Steady Rain in 2009, Harold Pinter’s Betrayal in 2013, and an off-Broadway version of Othello in 2016.
After releasing his final Bond movie – No Time To Die – in 2021, Craig then went back to the stage for another Shakespearean role, playing the lead in a production of Macbeth in 2022.
Brosnan’s first major acting role after leaving drama school was in the London premiere of Tennessee Williams’ The Red Devil Battery Sign in 1977, after initially being hired as an understudy and then promoted to the main cast by the playwright himself
It comes as the Thursday Murder Club star revealed he would return to the role of Bond ‘in a heartbeat.’
‘My wife Keely [Shaye Smith] and I have been listening to the drumbeat of expectation of who’s going to be the next James Bond,’ he told the Radio Times.
‘There are many great candidates out there, and I’m sure they’re going to make it a spectacle of delight.
‘I don’t think anyone wants to see a craggy, 72-year-old Bond, but if Villeneuve had something up his sleeve I would look at it in a heartbeat.
‘Why not? It’s great entertainment. It could be lots of laughs. Bald caps, prosthetics… who knows?’
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