PIERCE BROSNAN The man who brought Bond back from the dead swaps sharp suits for sharpshooting in his new role as an assassin in The Matador. But with his second GQ award under his belt, is 007 MK5 ready to spy another day?

Except that Pierce Brosnan, suffering the after effects of a late-night session on the single malt with family and friends following a screening of his latest film The Matador, does not look like a normal person in the throes of a hangover. The eyes still twinkle roguishly at our waitress, the classically handsome features remain obscenely unlined for a 52-year-old, while the hair betrays none of the dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards look traditionally associated with the recently over-refreshed. A less talented observer of the human condition might comment at this point, in compliance with the binding protocol for the compulsory use of the phrase in all Bond profiles, that he looks neither shaken nor stirred... Yet Brosnan has something to ponder that would give anyone cause to rush for the Nurofen, namely the ongoing saga over who will eventually star in Casino Royale, the next James Bond movie, the most successful cinema franchise of all time, lest we forget, and the most recent installment of which - Die Another Day- netted about £260 at the box office. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. The rights to the franchise are owned by Eon Productions, the company founded by late legendary producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, and passed down to his daughter, Barbara, and her half-brother, Michael Wilson.

Eon initially wanted Brosnan to reprise his role as Bond for a fifth time, an unsurprising move given that Brosnan breathed new life into the series after it hit rock bottom with Timothy Dalton's brief tenure, followed by a six-year hiatus.

But then other names - Clive Owen. Daniel Craig and others - began to be mooted as possible younger successors. Brosnan eventually received a call informing him that his services would no longer be required.

"They said they didn't know how to continue," elaborates Brosnan, reluctantly retelling the saga yet again. "They didn't know whether to go younger, they didn't know what to do, period. I don't know what the truth is. It could be as honest as that, but it seems strange, especially as each film made more and more money."

Hollywood scuttlebutt suggested the producers dumped Brosnan because, having made in excess of  £20m from the previous four films, he asked for the same to star in just one.

"Twenty million?" squeaks Brosnan with seemingly genuine surprise, before embarking on a prolonged rebuttal. "Oh no! Rubbish! Oh for God's sake! Bollocks! No way! No, it was a handsome round figure, of maybe £10m or something like that. Given what the films make, it's a spit in the bucket. I wasn't being greedy. The age issue? Bollocks to that, too."

But now, having resigned himself to bidding farewell to Bond, Brosnan finds his name in the frame once again. Dame Judi Dench, who has played the frosty M since Goldeneye has been quoted as saving Brosnan will get a fifth outing. What's more, it is rumoured that Sony, which has recently bought Bond studio MGM, wants Brosnan back in the saddle.

"Sony are pulling their hair out over it, apparently," he confirms with disarming honesty. "I was in their offices just a few weeks ago. pitching Thomas Crown 2. They said. 'Come back.' and I said. 'It's not up to me guys.' I think I was just caught up between the egos of the producers and the studios, really."

Another explanation is that it's all a carefully contrived PR stunt by Eon to ensure maximum publicity for the forthcoming film. It's a theory that Brosnan believes has some credibility. "Maybe it is all a big, clever ploy, just to bang the drum," he muses in that curious brogue of no fixed abode, which flits between the west coasts of Ireland and America. "We've seen it over the years with Sean and Roger."

If it turns out that he really has been decommissioned from the role, however, who would he like to see taking over? "Clive Owen I think has the chops for it," he responds. "He's a really fine actor. Although I don't know why he'd want to do it, because he's already got a great film career going for himself."

And what advice would he give to anyone taking over the role? "Get a good attorney." he replies, without hesitation. "Gel the best. Make sure you read that contract to the final letter. And have a wonderful time doing it. It's a great role, it's a great legacy to be part of. I am very proud of having done it. I have no regrets, no disappointments. For me the glass has always been half full even with all this recent nonsense.

"Playing Bond is like being an ambassador to a small country," he continues. "You have to be mindful of it and play it to the hilt. I have had the time of my life, it's been the greatest decade. It's given me a lovely lifestyle, a lovely home in Malibu. I've been able to provide for my lads, good schools, all the kind of stuff you want to be able to do as a working actor. The fame? Jesus, you love it. I love people - I'm Irish, you know."

Yet despite recognising all its many benefits, Brosnan remains obviously ambivalent about the role of Bond. Although admitting that even now if they wanted him he'd take the part, he knows it's limitations. An exception was the opening of Die Another Day. which saw 007 imprisoned in North Korea having been tortured for 14 months, leaving him unshaven (but not stirred) for the first time in memory.

They broke him down," he recalls. "They took him out of the mould and so for the actor it's great to play someone like that, but as soon as he got into the tie in Hong Kong and cleaned up with the Remington product-placement razor, he was back in the fucking straitjacket. They're too scared to take him out of the bag too much or have a real dramatic moment."

Further frustration came recently when Quentin Tarantino approached Brosnan over a few apple martinis about teaming up to make the next Bond, only for it to be rejected. "Can you imagine what that would have been like?" he muses. "The bravado of his work, him playing on that scale, would have been money in the bank and really entertaining."

Brosnan is equally scathing about the etiquette surrounding Bond's sex scenes. "You're not even allowed to show a bloody nipple," he laughs. "It's pathetic. What Bond needs is a good, palpable killing sequence and a good sex scene - and it doesn't have to be graphic, you can use your imagination. We had a good one in The Thomas Crown Affair, a really classy, sexy scene."

All the same, it's nice work if you can get it. Forced to take his pick of all the Bond girls he's starred opposite, could he choose a favourite?

"I think Halle (Berry) is right up there," he smiles, as his eyes go into twinkle mode at the memory. "She is just a luscious girl with such a beautiful body and she's a good woman, too. She has a great sense of her own sexuality, so she knows it and she plays it."
 

Then, not for the first time today, Brosnan tries to steer the conversation away from Bond. "I don't know." he says, a little wearily, last night's exertions starting to catch up with him, perhaps. "Can we put a bullet in him? Now!" Perhaps the biggest limitation Brosnan has endured while playing Bond is that it gives him so little scope to display any sense of fun or wit beyond those humourless punch lines muttered after a foe's death. And Brosnan does have a sense of humour. This is, after all, a man who once voiced a psychotic computer in The Simpsons and traded quips with a deranged leprechaun. Fortunately, he is allowed a chance to exercise his funny bone in slightly more conventional surroundings in his latest film The Matador, the fifth outing from his production company, Irish DreamTime, whose most notable success to date has been The Thomas Crown Affair, a remake notable for being better than the original. In The Matador Brosnan plays a burnt-out hit man who strikes up a relationship with a suburban wage-slave, played by Greg Kinnear and his wife, played by Hope Davis. The film enters that difficult territory between genres: part comedy, part thriller, and emerges with its dignity intact.

"It's a buddy movie, really," opines Brosnan. "It's a love story between these two guys who are both kind of lost a little and one just happens to be a hit man."

Though it shies away from anything too raunchy, the film does see Brosnan engage in some sex scenes that would be off-limits to a well-known secret service agent - "The old doggie style. I'd never done that before" - but it could also have been a very different film.

"The piece originally was much more over the top, much more graphic, sexually." Brosnan admits. "My character was really rather base. After we had the financing, after we had the reading. I jumped ship. 1 said. 'I can't do this, this is nuts.' Everybody freaked out, but I just got shy of it and we went back to the table and actually it got better."

It would be nice if the changes mean that The Matador proves to be a hit. The problems in Brosnan's personal life - the death of his first wife, Cassie, and the struggles he has faced raising his children - have earned him a residual sympathy that means the crowd will always be on his side. More than this, however, he is a refreshingly honest interviewee. Nothing is off-limits, as evidenced when he reveals the circumstances in which he lost his virginity. "I think it was in Tooting Bec and her name was Harriet and she was also a luscious lass. I was a late starter, actually, I think I was about 18."
 

While declaring himself "absolutely thrilled" with this, his second GQ award (the first was in 2002) he also betrays a sense of self-deprecation and self-awareness largely absent from those who have spent any time in Hollywood. "I was trained as an actor and I was led to believe that I had a number of performances in me," he reflects. "The fact that I've just given the same performance, well maybe... If I can get away with it, why not? But I've reached a point now where I'd better start trying to find some performances and challenge myself." As he drains his final cup of coffee, I ask him what is the biggest misconception about him. '"That I am suave and truly sophisticated," he laughs. "I am a peasant. I've just done a good job creating a character for myself: a good job of reinventing myself or selling myself with a certain persona. We all have to struggle, some sooner than later. You're not going to escape any hardships in life, so when you have them, you have to get on with it and not be a prat about it, and not moan and whine about it. I've had very good fortune, my life has been a dream, really, with big dollops of reality thrown at me every now and then. If you pay attention to it then hopefully it makes you a better person."