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Former 007 actor Pierce Brosnan, who played Ian Fleming’s spy in four smash-hit EON movies, has declared that the current 007 Daniel Craig should keep playing James Bond into his fifties, even though there will come a point when it is time to step aside. According to a new report in the London Evening Standard (4th April), the former 007 said Craig was ‘brilliant’ in the role and urged him to continue.

As the Standard noted, Brosnan, who is now 63-years old, was aged 49 when he made his last Bond movie Die Another Day (2002), which is the same age as Craig is now. Asked if there is an age limit to play 007, Brosnan responded: ‘There is a definite point where you have to say enough’s enough, for sure. I’m not going to put a number on it’.

However, quizzed further on Craig’s future as Bond, Brosnan added: ‘It’s his for the taking. Go for it man. He’s brilliant’. This is not the first time Brosnan has praised Daniel’s tenure as 007, but his comments will hold special resonance given all the speculation there has been over the next Bond movie and Craig’s participation.

As many Bond fans know, Brosnan was taken by surprise when his licence was not renewed after Die Another Day, as he was clearly keen to continue with the role, had he been given the opportunity. But he has also gone on record as saying how impressed he has been with his successor’s interpretation of the role, a view also shared by the former Bonds Sir Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton.

Daniel Craig recently overtook Brosnan as the second-longest serving actor in the role after Sir Roger Moore, and there has been much media speculation over whether Craig will agree to go on another mission for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. One of the latest (unconfirmed) news items along these lines has come from the ‘Page Six’ column of the New York Post (3rd April), whose showbiz columnist Emily Smith claimed that EON producer Barbara Broccoli ‘has just about persuaded’ Daniel to do one more 007 movie, after she produced his recent critically-acclaimed off-Broadway version of Othello.

Try Another Way

Pierce Brosnan made his enthusiasm for Craig as Bond very apparent while he was giving a tie-in interview to help publicise his new TV series, The Son. Since stepping down as James Bond, the four-times 007 has been involved with a variety of projects, ranging from an appearance in the musical Mamma Mia! (2008), through to the political thriller The Ghost (2010), and the spy movie The November Man (2014), in which he played retired CIA agent Peter Devereaux.

His much-anticipated new series for television, which is his first TV starring role for 30 years, is a western based on the Pulitzer prize finalist novel by Philipp Meyer. Brosnan plays patriarch Eli McCullough, who was kidnapped as a child and was raised by the Comanche Native American tribe. At the premiere of The Son in Los Angeles, Brosnan explained that many of the core issues explored in the new series remain problems today in present-day America: ‘Not much has changed really. Borders are still drawn. There is still ugly racism in our life’.

His bond with Bond

Since joining the small band of ex-Bonds, Pierce has made a number of comments about the experience of being part of this unique club. In 2014, for example, when interviewed by the Daily Beast (2nd July), he was asked at one point whether there was a secret brotherhood (so to speak) among the Bond actors? He commented: ‘I think there’s mutual respect and interconnectedness, but I don’t pick up the phone and speak to Sean. I’ve met him once in my life. Daniel is the one I had most rapport with, because we were ships passing. We sat and talked in the day before he entered the stage with his magnificent portrayal as Bond’.

Brosnan’s new TV series The Son will begin its run on AMC starting on Tuesday, April 18th, at 9.00pm.

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Spy film ‘The November Man’ (2014)

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