Licence to quit

Pierce Brosnan turned in his licence to kill yesterday as he admitted he will not play James Bond again.

The 51- year- old Irish actor’s decision to quit the role he has played four times follows months of intense contractual wrangling, first revealed in the Daily Mail in March.

It also paves the way for a younger actor to take his place.

Brosnan said he was glad to go out on a high after last year’s 007 outing Die
Another Day took £250million at the box office.

But after protracted rows over start dates, scripts and even Brosnan’s own involvement, the star said he had finally had enough of the role.

‘That’s it, I’ve said all I’ve got to say on the world of James Bond,’ Brosnan said yesterday.

‘Bond is another lifetime, behind me. We went out on a high, and I look back affectionatelyat that time and doing those four movies.’

Brosnan had been keen to lessen the concentration on special effects and action, instead returning to writing more suspense into the storylines.

He has been keen to imply that it was his decision to quit the role, and recently said of the producers: ‘They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to move on. A sense of paralysis has set in.’

Sources close to production company Eon, however, insisted it decided to terminate the relationship because it wanted to bring in a younger Bond and focus on his early days.

Production sources said no decisions on recasting have been made yet but it was unlikely that a well-known actor would be chosen. But last night bookmakers named the most likely five replacements as Clive Owen, 39, Hugh Jackman, 35, Jude Law, 31, Christian Bale, 30, and 36-year-old Rufus Sewell.

Brosnan, whose first Bond film GoldenEye was released nine years ago, was the fifth actor to take on the character, following Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton.