Pierce Brosnan has opened up about who he’d have liked to play in a music biopic, if he’d been given the chance.
The Mamma Mia star was speaking to NME in a new interview and was asked if he’d ever been offered the chance to play a musician in a film biopic before.
In response, Brosnan explained he hadn’t, but spoke about his time in the film Mamma Mia.
“Mamma Mia‘s the closest I’ve got to singing and I love it. I did get a platinum album for my singing you know, so fuck the begrudgers! I got to sing with Meryl Streep! It was the last thing I expected but I kind of got it. I understood the joke, the karaoke of it all. They didn’t employ me for my singing but I loved it anyway.”
He then went on to open up about who he might have played if he did get the chance to appear in one: “I don’t have any desire to play anyone in particular. I mean Elvis, but he’s been taken [by Austin Butler in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis], beautifully so.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Brosnan recalled a number of his favourite gig memories, including seeing Pink Floyd.
Brosnan explained: “I remember seeing Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett. Syd was sitting on the side like a gnome. The light shows were just beautiful. They played ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’ [from their 1968 album ‘A Saucerful Of Secrets’]. It was mind-blowing.
Before starring as James Bond, Brosnan had made a name for himself in television show Remington Steele. It was around the time of him starring in this when Brosnan auditioned for the role of Batman for Tim Burton’s directorial take on the caped crusader.
Speaking on The Tonight Show, Brosnan revealed a quip he made during the audition process – something he thought would win him the role. However, the actor revealed how it did just the opposite.
“I remember saying something stupid to Tim Burton,” Brosnan told host Jimmy Fallon. “I said, ‘You know I can’t understand [why] any man who would wear his underpants outside his trousers.’”
Brosnan said he thinks the comment led to him not getting the part. “But there you go … the best man got the job,” he said of Michael Keaton’s eventual landing of the part. Keaton went on to play the part again in Batman Returns in 1992.
Brosnan is currently starring in Black Adam, his first superhero movie, which is in cinemas now.