Pierce Brosnan has responded to Helen Mirren’s claims that the James Bond franchise is sexist, and he agrees.
The 71-year-old starred as the fictional secret agent in four films, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day, between 1995 and 2002.
Brosnan is widely considered one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable iterations of the character, and is partly credited with the franchise’s successful reinvention.
The movies, based on the spy novels by Ian Fleming, have grossed billions of dollars over the decades since the first instalment, Dr No, in 1962.
Mirren singled out Brosnan as one of her favourites in the movies saying, “I’m a huge fan of Pierce Brosnan, I mean massive fan... And indeed Daniel Craig, who I’ve met and know a little bit,” in an interview with The Standard.
But, she criticised the movies for being “drenched and born out of profound sexism”.
Brosnan reacted to Mirren’s comments as he told People: "Yes, there's a certain agreement there.”
However, he continued: "But there's a certain world and room to move within the proscenium arch of what [Bond creator and author] Ian Fleming put down. So there's always going to be conflict."
Oscar-winner Mirren, 79, stars alongside Brosnan in the Paramount+ series, MobLand.
During her critique of Bond, she went on to highlight discrepancies between the depiction of women in the franchise and the real-world achievements of women in the world of espionage.
“The whole series of James Bond, it was not my thing,” she said. “It really wasn’t. I never liked James Bond. I never liked the way women were in James Bond.”
She explained: “The whole concept of James Bond is drenched and born out of profound sexism. Women have always been a major and incredibly important part of the Secret Service, they always have been. And very brave.”
Brosnan has previously shared that he felt his “tame” James Bond was “never good enough” in a 2014 interview.
“I felt I was caught in a time warp between Roger (Moore) and Sean (Connery). It was a very hard one to grasp the meaning of, for me,” he told The Telegraph.
“The violence was never real, the brute force of the man was never palpable. It was quite tame, and the characterisation didn’t have a follow-through of reality, it was surface. But then that might have had to do with my own insecurities in playing him as well.”
Speculation continues as to who will replace Daniel Craig as the British spy in the forthcoming films. A number of actors have been rumoured to replace him in the iconic role, including Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, and the reputed favourite to replace him, Aaron-Taylor Johnson.
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