Pierce Brosnan: charm is all he needs (THE IRISH TIMES)

BY TARA BRADY

Let’s be honest. There is one adjective that describes Pierce Brosnan best. He is smooth. He is smoother than the smoothest surface sold in Smooth and Co. When he inherited the part of James Bond from Timothy Dalton, he made that fine actor seem, in retrospect, like a Welsh gorilla. That suaveness served Brosnan well while playing a variation on Tony Blair in Roman Polanski’s The Ghost . He smoothed his way delightfully (though not always tunefully) through Abba classics in Mamma Mia!

You don’t need to see him in Susanne Bier’s fine Love is All You Need to savour the Brosnan silk in action. Just listen to him talk about it.

“I did it two summers ago in Sorrento with the wonderful Susanne,” he says. “I had the time of my life. I do love this film. You get the warm embrace of a move that has heart and love.”

In the Oscar-winning Bier’s gorgeous new film, Trine Dyrholm plays a breast-cancer survivor who, while attending a wedding in Italy, becomes involved with the sleek, widowed father of the groom (not played by Timothy Dalton). Brosnan has, of course, a personal connection with the story. In 1991, Cassandra Harris, his first wife, died of Ovarian cancer, and he has campaigned tirelessly for cancer charities throughout the succeeding two decades.

“It does deal with breast cancer,” he says. “You know, no one ever goes near cancer. They don’t want to. I lost my wife to cancer. So it has that poignancy for me. Susanne had no idea of my personal circumstances when she got in touch. But it’s a man dealing with cancer and being a single father. I felt I knew it. I felt I could play it.

READ MORE: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/pierce-brosnan-charm-is-all-he-needs-1.1363534