- Pierce Brosnan underwent hand surgery before filming Goldeneye
- His little finger struggled to clasp onto the gun
- The actor reveals how he addressed the issue
It wasn’t exactly Goldfinger when Pierce Brosnan first stepped into the role of James Bond. The actor has revealed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert how his pinky finger became a problem when shooting his first scenes.
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Appearing on the show to promote his upcoming show, MobLand, Brosnan shared some stories about his time working for MI6.
His first Bond movie was GoldenEye, released in 1995, which also introduced Judi Dench as M. It also starred Robbie Coltrane as Russian mobster Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky, and it was in a scene with Coltrane that Brosnan recalls some unruly behaviour from his little finger.
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The Irish actor explained that he had undergone hand surgery before the movie went into production and had spent twelve weeks in a hand splint.
“I had actually just had hand surgery, to tell you the truth. I had sliced this tendon open at home, so I’d been in a splint for about 12 weeks, and I got it off the first morning of shooting James Bond. Six-page scene, and I could hardly move my hand,” he told Colbert.
Brosnan’s little finger had life of its own
As a result, Brosnan had trouble keeping his little finger in check when holding the Walther PPK gun. “The very first shot is the camera following Robbie Coltrane, and he comes behind a curtain, and I point the gun to his head, and he says, ‘Only three men in the world own that weapon, and I’ve killed two of them.’ So we went for the take… and my finger went, ‘Toot!’ — like this,” said the actor, pretending to hold an imaginary gun with his little finger sticking out. “Sorry! It’s okay!” he recalled saying at the time.
But it happened again on the second take. “I shouldn’t be even telling you this,” he admitted, “but anyway, Martin Campbell was the director and he said, ‘Let’s go again.’ Same line, finger just went like that.”
James Bond needed a band-aid
Brosnan eventually addressed the issue with the help of a band-aid. “I got a Band-aid and I stuck it to the gun, And that was it! Problem solved! Got through the day’s work.”
He got through another seven years of work as the martini-drinking agent. Brosan would go on to reprise the role in another three films – 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, and 2002’s Die Another Day – before passing the torch to Daniel Craig.
In February, Amazon announced its joint venture with longtime Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, that will see the company take over creative control of the franchise moving forward.
