In today’s landscape, it shouldn’t be much of a shock to see A-listers you’ve long thought of as being exclusively Big Screen coming over to television. Still: Pierce Brosnan, Dame Helen Mirren, and Tom Hardy is the kind of lineup that invites a double-take. Wait, this is a series? Indeed: The trio have linked up for the Guy Ritchie-produced MobLand, an upcoming Paramount+ drama about a global crime syndicate. Ritchie reuniting with Hardy and two more legends in a take on the contemporary London underworld sounds like a layup, and the first trailer reaffirms that. Dame Helen is in full Lady Macbeth mode; Hardy fits the conflicted-henchman role like a glove. And then there’s Brosnan, who seems to be contorting his usual suave charisma into something muddier, nastier and thornier.
GQ caught up with Brosnan last week during a break from filming MobLand’s last couple of episodes in the Cotswolds. “It's one of the most beautiful parts of the English countryside, it's the jewel, the haven,” Brosnan gushed. “And it is the heartbeat of MobLand, where my character resides. We’re on episode nine, and the train has left the station. We are having the most magnificent time in the company of the world of Guy Ritchie and his story, so it's going very well, yes. Got one more episode to go.”
For Brosnan, the medium isn’t so important as long as the material is captivating, stressing that Ritchie and his writers have created a world with a “heartbeat of authenticity.” Brosnan’s enthusiasm for it, plus a pretty captivating trailer, suddenly places MobLand high on the list of series to look forward to this year. Below, Brosnan talks about breaking bad for Ritchie, reminisces on playing Thomas Crown, and addresses those Bond rumors.
GQ: MobLand looks exciting. What made you want to dive into Guy Ritchie’s world?
Pierce Brosnan: Guy Ritchie is someone who I've known about from his beginnings, his birth. I've watched him flourish, and he, along with Ronan Barrett, the writer, and Jez Butterworth have created something which I think has strong entertainment value.
Jez is one of the foremost writers of his time. It brings me back to England, which is the birthplace of my work as an actor. The character has a certain continuity to the characters that I've created in the course of my own career. And I'm with an ensemble of actors who are rather impeccable and courageous. Dame Helen Mirren is someone who I've worked with before. I started my career with her, somewhat, in The Long Good Friday [Brosnan's first film, from 1980, in which he's billed as “1st Irishman”] and we worked together last year on Thursday Murder Club.
The trailer intrigued me, because it felt like you were getting to play a part that exercised some different muscles for you. I know you just mentioned there being a sort of continuity with past characters, but overall it feels like a fresh new role for you.
It's definitely a robust character. He’s a mangled man who has charisma, but he’s someone who is dangerously on the edge. And he’s aligned with a wife who is equally outrageous, and they’ve managed to live a very good life in this kind of rather dangerous underworld. They’re gangsters— should you wish to call them gangsters—but [I see them] as business people who deal, sometimes, with violence.
You have such a robust legacy. What are you looking for in a role these days? What gets you excited?
You’re looking for something that will emotionally engage you at the beginning of the day, and still at the end of the day's work. You are looking for the exhilaration of the endeavors of being an unexpected surprise. You are looking for something that will emotionally turn you on and hopefully turn the audience on. You are looking for good work that will lead you to other good work. The life of an actor is a very capricious game, and the actual doing of it, the actual want and desire of it is fairly straightforward and broad reaching, but the actual doing of it takes time, it takes a lifetime if you're going to stay at the table. So yeah, you look for work that will exhilarate you. You look for work. Sometimes you have choices and sometimes you don't have choices, but if you have the balls and you have the grit to do it then you will, one way or the other.
Did you find that when you stopped playing James Bond that that actually freed you up to make more artistic choices and follow those paths that you just laid out?
I've always lived an artistic life. So I've always had the good fortune to have some piece of talent that I can polish and some kind of passion for the work to go through the rough patches. I mean, I love what I do, and certainly now at a time in my life where I have choices and more importantly, I have the warmth and the desire to do good work, to challenge oneself, to create something that is unexpected, to create something that has value.
Now, you mentioned working with Dame Helen Mirren, but how did you enjoy working with Tom Hardy?
Tom, I've been in the greatest admiration of for many years. Both actors have a quality of passion and performance, which you want to keep seeing, and they always transform. And when you see people transform, when you see someone have such a believability that Dame Helen and Tom do, in some ways he's... I don't know. We were trained by similar teachers. We went to the same drama school, so we have a passion for this alchemy of acting, I guess, and the madness of it, that, for me, it is just absolutely invigorating. We don't know each other that well, I just have a great admiration for his work, his presence on this. But the man creates from his own inner life to performance.
So yes, within the context of the story, I am a father figure [to his character], and this is a story about a family, a family that is mangled, desperate, charismatic, brutal, wily, unpredictable.
Guy Ritchie also takes from the vernacular, the colloquialisms, of Shakespeare, so you have these kinds of Shakespearean characters. The Scottish play, not to name it, but you have a man and a wife who rule a certain kingdom and there's mistrust. There's a desperate kind of life involved with violence and wanting to devour anyone who comes into their being. So, you have all that grandiose storytelling and then you have something which is kind of rather cool and chic and the ensemble of characters have a certain sensuality and the look of the show has a casual elegance.
Speaking of sensuality: I was re-watching The Thomas Crown Affair recently. It holds up so well, but it's also an example of the kind of sexy movies that aren’t made at that scale anymore.
Oh, we live in a time that seems to be so fractured by so many desires and wants and with a heartbeat of anxiety, constant anxiety and disagreement of who we are and what we are, which is definitely perpetuated by, well, media, TikTok. But I think the essence of life and what most people wish and desire is romance and love. And within that, from common sense, that not everything works out the way it should do.
I don't know, I mean, Thomas Crown Affair is something that I am deeply proud of, and there was a gap to do a remake to enter the arena of Steve McQueen. I think our attention span has sort of diminished [laughs]. So we have to go back. The pendulum has to swing back here at some point to a level of enjoying life moment to moment. Movies are made of dreams. All movies are just dreams essentially. It's just a dream. It's just some storytelling of a dream. It's not real. You don't believe it. It didn't happen. The actors... It's just a dream. It's just a formula.
I’m not sure if you’re aware but they're remaking it with Michael B. Jordan, and I wanted to know if you had any advice for him stepping into those shoes.
Oh, Michael is such a gifted actor, and it's all his for the doing and the taking [laughs]. It is. Yeah, why not? I really love heist movies, it's why I made the remake and the timing for me was perfect in the days that were of MGM and James Bond. So, yes, good luck. I wish him every success.
Speaking of James Bond, I'm not sure if you know, but there's a sentiment out there that people would like to see you come back and play an older version of the character. Are you aware of that? Would you be interested in it?
I've heard of that. Of course, how could I not be interested? But it's a delicate situation now. I think it's best to let sleeping dogs lie, really. I think so. It's a rather romantic notion and idea, but I think everything changes, everything falls apart. I think that it's best left to another man, really. Fresh blood.
MobLand premieres March 30 on Paramount+.