Both actors played James Bond, aka 007, at different points in their careers.
Pierce Brosnan had dedicated an emotional tribute to Roger Moore, who passed away last Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer.
He talked of how Moore influenced and inspired him, and calls him a ‘magnificent actor.’ He writes firstly of how he always felt connected to Bond, having left Ireland for London the same day that Ian Fleming died, and how his first experience of Bond was seeing Sean Connery in Goldfinger. He thought no one could top it, until Roger Moore’s take on the spy.
He writes of the ‘Herculean’ task that was Moore's taking on the role, particularly following Connery: “He knew his time was now, and he reigned over seven movies as James Bond with exceptional skill and comic timing laced with a stiletto vengeance. He knew his comedy, he knew who he was and he played onstage and off with an easy grace and charm. He knew that we knew.”
Brosnan continues: “Never forgetting the audience, never letting the begrudgers in, Sir Roger enthralled the world for many years as Bond. Sir Roger played it to the end with impeccable good manners and a wicked sense of irony that was born of years upon the stage. He saved our world, for heaven’s sake, with his movies as James Bond.”
He also wrote of his own personal encounters with the actor, saying he is the only actor he ever asked for an autograph from (at the age of 12), and how Roger had visited him on the set of GoldenEye to wish him well. Brosnan concludes: “What more can one ask for? I am so proud to have known the kindness and humanity of Sir Roger Moore.”
