With wife Keely (at 2005 Oscars) 

I'm free at last. And as much as I liked playing James Bond, it was a shackle. The day the phone rang and it was my agent saying, "It's over. Negotiations have stopped," I was shocked. It was a bit of a body blow. They had invited me back and then uninvited me. Then I felt a great sense of liberation, a mild euphoria that I was free of it and could do anything I wanted. I was an actor again. I've had 10 years and four films that were very successful and a whole generation grew up with me playing Bond. And I made a great living from it. So I look at it positively. Anything else would be detrimental and negative and soul-destroying.
 

AND NOW, THE ANTI-BOND 

I read The Matador script and I howled. On page one, the guy gets out of bed with a girl. Okay, I've done that a million times. And then he paints his toe-nails black, tells a little boy off. tells a woman he'd like her if she lost 30 Ibs..,and then blows a guy up. And that's all in the first page! He is really outrageous. At one point, I panicked. I was a little nervous going off and doing something so different.

We shot the scene [above right] at 11 a.m. I had five pairs of underpants on the bed. all black, laid out for me. I had a beer first. Yeah, I did. I stood there in my dressing gown and knickers, thinking, "Should I do this?" And I'm checking myself out from the side. from the front, and I'm going. "All right, okay, just remember... suck in the gut!" It was hysterical. The extras were agog. You can see the women laughing. It skewers people's perception of me.
 

 AT HOME IN MALIBU

I make my kids (Dylan, 9 and Paris, 4] breakfast most mornings [when I'm home] -soft-boiled eggs and oatmeal— and I watch the Today show. I pack their lunch... I make banana and honey sandwiches without the crusts. They don't like crusts. Then I drive them to school, and maybe I'll go for a jog or a swim if it's warm. We live a pretty domestic and normal life. My wife [environmental activist Keely Shave Smith, 42] and I go down to the tide pools and walk. Or we ride our bikes down to Xuma [Beach] and have coffee and watch the whales. My wife likes to garden. She's beautiful—sensuous, gorgeous, intelligent, funny and has a good heart. Everything's better with her. It's wonderful plotting and scheming life together.
 

HIS OLDER CHILDREN

Sean [22, his son with first wife Cassandra Harris, who died of ovarian cancer in 1991] is an actor, and I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen him onstage yet. He just completed three years studying in London, and he's got three films under his belt already. Christopher [33, Harris's son whom Brosnan adopted] has gone through agony [he was arrested in London in June for suspected heroin possession]. The disease of drug and alcohol abuse is prevalent in our society, and it's been a hard road for him. But now he's healthy and he's good. And we all love and adore him. [Brosnan also has an adopted daughter. Charlotte, 34.]
 

TIME FOR A TRIM 

I have this beard for the film I'm shooting now. Seraphim Falls, a Civil War western. I can't wait to shave it off. People have compared me to Saddam Hussein. It looks good when I'm on a horse, but my wife hates it. She wants her man back.

FAMILY MAN: cycling in Malibu with son Paris (last April); with older sons Sean  and 
Christopher in 2003.