Pierce Brosnan has defended his accent in the new Paramount+ gangster drama MobLand after viewers and critics deemed it “utterly ridiculous”.
The 72-year-old former James Bond actor stars alongside Dame Helen Mirren in the new Guy Ritchie crime drama. In it, he plays gangster boss and family patriarch Conrad Harrigan (Brosnan).
Both Brosnan and Mirren have been the subject of criticism over the believability of their Irish accents in the programme, with Brosnan singled out especially since he is from Drogheda in County Louth, Ireland.
The actor has now addressed that criticism, arguing that his performance as the fictional Conrad Harrigan – who is from Kerry on Ireland’s south west coast – required a broader Irish accent than his own.
“My own accent is very soft. Conrad’s accent is a million miles away from me,” he told Radio Times, adding that his voice training was based on a real accent and that he worked with a dialect coach.
“I told him that I needed a Kerry accent,” he said. “So he gave me the name of a man and I Googled the guy and that was it. It was a Kerry accent. And so, I just gave it full tilt.”
The “ridiculous” accents were only part of the problem for many critics who disliked MobLand. In The Independent’s two-star review of the programme, Ed Power wrote: “Brosnan sounds like a leprechaun who has swapped his lucky charms for a crock of ketamine.”
He added: “Mirren’s Irish accent, for its part, takes in the Lakes of Killarney, the Rock of Cashel and Father Ted’s Holy Stone of Clonrichert. I felt like I’d taken a road trip across Ireland without ever leaving my couch.”
The Independent’s Helen Coffey also wrote: “There’s Brosnan’s preposterous ‘Irish’ brogue for starters – even more inexplicable when you consider that the man actually is Irish – an amalgamation of every terrible ‘top o’ the mornin’ to ya!’ impression you’ve ever heard.”
Online, viewers have been sharing similar criticism, with one person writing on X/Twitter: “Pierce Brosnan has be the only person in existence who was born and raised in Ireland to Irish parents that can't pull off an Irish accent.”
Elsewhere in the interview with Radio Times, Brosnan explained why he feels a certain amount of trepidation when taking on a new role.
“Every job is a challenge and it all comes with a thump of anxiety, because you have to do something. What are you doing on the stage? Why are you there? So that’s constant. You live with that,” he said. “You live with that stress all the time, and that’s what’s so exhilarating. That’s what makes you alive.”
MobLand, which also stars Tom Hardy, sees Brosnan reunited with Mirren, more than 40 years after they starred together in John Mackenzie's iconic 1979 gangster film The Long Good Friday.
Oscar-winner Mirren, who won Best Actress in 2007 for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in Queen, stars in MobLand as the devious Maeve, matriarch of the Harrigan family.
Brosnan is best known for playing the British spy agent James Bond from 1995 to 2002, starring in four films: GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999), and Die Another Day (2002).
He will once again star opposite Mirren in a film adaptation of Richard Osman’s book The Thursday Murder Club, which will be released this summer.
The latest issue of Radio Times is out now.
Matthew Rhys: ‘I’d have played James Bond as a Welshman until they told me to stop’
Aaron Taylor-Johnson signs deal with iconic James Bond brand
A View to a Kill at 40: No, it’s not the worst Bond ever
Jennifer Lopez raises eyebrows with risque AMAs performance
Who Wants to be a Millionaire contestant suffers ‘biggest loss’ in show’s history
Lorraine Kelly ‘left insulted’ by GMB offer ahead of major presenting shakeup
