Despite valiant efforts to live up to expectations, Pierce Brosnan was not always as suave as his famous celluloid incarnation:
"I got a Porsche convertible on loan and stopped to buy chewing gum at a newsstand," he once recalled. "I've just said hello to some tourists who think I'm [James Bond] and I'm trying to be cool and start the bloody car, and I stall it."
[Brosnan once bought himself an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish much like that in Die Another Day. A spokesman explained that Brosnan's vehicle had the very same baubles as Bond's car did. "Of course, in Mr. Brosnan's car," he added, "there will be no ejector seats, no missile launchers and no machine guns." Brosnan later confessed that he mostly used it "to drive the kids to school."]
[In 1980, Brosnan accompanied Bond girl Cassandra Harris (his girlfriend and future wife) to the set of For Your Eyes Only in Corfu. Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, mindful of Roger Moore's advancing age, immediately noticed Brosnan's Bond-like appearance. "If he can act," Broccoli remarked, "he's my guy."]
Sources
London Daily Mail, Oct. 2002; London Evening Standard, Aug. 7, 2002; tiscali.co.uk
