Pierce Brosnan and Roman Polanski team up in 'The Ghost Writer'

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CAHIR O'DOHERTY,

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Roman Polanski directs Pierce Brosnan on the set of 'The Ghost Writer.'

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For decades now, understandably, Polanski’s personal life has threatened to overwhelm his films. The attention paid to his history is always a consideration that actors have to grapple with before they decide to come on board one of his films, and in this regard Brosnan’s no different.  But he is careful with his words on the subject.

“I knew of this turbulent, brilliant life of his and I was enthralled and intrigued by the opportunity to play in this film. And then the experience of it was very satisfying,” he says.

“You have to be on your game with Polanski. He is all encompassing on the set, he has his finger in every aspect of the production, including the sets and costumes, almost the weather. He wanted bad weather and he got bad weather.”

Brosnan first heard that Polanski was considering him for the role of Lang when he was in London promoting ‘Mamma Mia.’

“Why do people laugh whenever I mention that film?” Brosnan asks with a wry smile.

“A political thriller was the last thing I was thinking of when the offer arrived, so I eventually met with Polanski and my first question to him was, ‘Am I playing Tony Blair?’ He said no, however all roads seem to point to one man only.

“So I looked at Tony Blair and his public persona, and then I took my other cues from the book on which the screenplay is based.”

There’s no doubt that the fictional film contains explosive similarities to the political realities that the U.S. and Britain lived through during the Bush administration and the Blair era. But working with a director who has been praised and vilified in roughly equal measure meant that there was no space to take anything for granted.

“You have the life of this director on the one side and you have the life of Tony Blair on the other. It makes for interesting drama. You have a lot to choose from,” Brosnan says.

It helps that Brosnan has actually met Tony Blair and his wife Cherie and got a glimpse of the security bubble they lived (and continue to live) in.

“I met Blair once and he was very charming, as was his wife. But I’ve lived in America for many years now and I don’t really pay deep attention to the politics of Britain,” Brosnan says.

“But Blair seemed to sweep into office with great expectations and then fell by the wayside. That’s just the observation I made from my shallow perspective on his life.”

In ‘The Ghost Writer,’ what looks like a private resort where the former prime minister has retired to is actually a nest of vipers at the end of Cape Cod.  (The film was made in Germany, due to the fact that Polanski is a fugitive from the U.S. court system).

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