Pierce Brosnan asked what it’s like to be a "British Icon”

TV host Stephen Colbert slipped up Monday night when he asked Meath-born actor Pierce Brosnan what it’s like to be a “British icon.”

“I understand you grew up in a small town in Northern Ireland,” the Irish American told the former James Bond actor.

“Southern Ireland,” he replies.

“Southern Ireland? Oh I didn’t know that.”

“I grew up on the banks of the River Boyne in County Meath,” he adds, “just about 60 miles outside of Dublin.”

“So how does a boy who grows up in a small town in the Republic of Ireland, how does he become a British icon? Where’s your accent is what I’m asking!”

Laughing, Brosnan replies, “Oh the accent got mangled way back there trying to fit in. I left Ireland in 1964 as a country boy and trying to fit into a new community, society in south London. I suppose it was one of my best performances.

“I’m from South London, talking like that, you know what I’m saying mate?” he continues in a mock London accent. “You want to be part of the community, you know? Part of the gang. Then I realized I wasn’t.”

The two then chatted about Brosnan’s most recent movie – a collaboration between him and Jackie Chan, in which Chan’s daughter is murdered and he seeks to answer who killed her.

Watch the whole interview here.