Pierce Brosnan has opened up about having to find his Irish accent again as he stars in a new Guy Ritchie series on Paramount+.
Pierce stars in "MobLand" as Kerry mobster Conrad Harrigan and despite being from Navan, one wouldn’t be able to tell he’s not from The Kingdom.
Pierce admitted that his Irish accent has ‘been dissipated to the midst of time’ and admitted that he was panicking when he learned that he’d have to do one for the show.
He did, however, acknowledge that the accent is what makes the character, and credit where credit is due as even those of us who haven’t lost our Irish accents would struggle to pull off a Kerry one.
‘Last summer I spoke to Guy (Ritchie) for the first time about it and having read the five episodes he said not to worry about it,’ Pierce told Dave Moore on Today FM. ‘[He said] “We’ll just do it 15 minutes on the day, clear your mind, we’ll sort it out, don’t worry about it.”
‘Of course I put the phone down and did worry about it! Five weeks later I was on the set with Tom Hardy and Guy, first day, important dialogue, important information and he just said ‘more Irish, more Irish’ and my Irish accent has dissipated into the midst of time. It’s somewhat Californian and everything. So I asked myself, “What kind of accent would he have?” It was Kerry.’
Pierce added that he loved the Kingdom accent, saying: ‘Kerry has a lovely sing-song lilt to it and has a bite to it and a sense of humour to it. But it can be very hard and grab you by the throat. In the hands of Conrad it gave me the character. It was literally 15 minutes before shooting. That’s how Conrad Harrigan was born really.’
Pierce also spoke about working with other Irish actors, including Kin’s Emmett J Scanlan, saying that the pair get on ‘like a house on fire.’
‘He’s quite brilliant [Emmet], [he’s] a lovely man and he and I get on like a house on fire.
‘He’s the quiet centurion that stands there beside my character Conrad Harrigan. Conrad and Maeve Harrigan, played by Dame Helen Mirren. We had good old hijinks working on it.’
The star-studded lineup was just the icing on the cake for Pierce, with him admitting that he jumped at the chance to not only work with Guy Ritchie, but also film in Europe, as the show filmed in London last year.
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‘Guy Ritchie sent me five scripts last summer and I was very charmed and excited because I love Guy Ritchie films,’ Pierce said. ‘I wanted to come back to England, I wanted to come back to London, come back to Europe. So I jumped at the chance.
‘Then of course Helen Mirren jumped on board and then we had Tom Hardy. He’s someone I’ve admired the work of. So you have all these people you’re a fan of. I’m an actor, I’m within the game, but I’m outside the game as an audience member as well.’
You can catch Pierce Brosnan in "MobLand" when it premieres on Paramount+ on Sunday, March 30, with episodes dropping weekly.
* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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