Production Companies Stratus Film Co., DEJ Productions, Equity Pictures Medienfonds GmbH & Co. KG II, Syndicate, The, Furst Films, Irish DreamTime, Arclight Films, Yari Film Group (YFG) (uncredited)
For Brosnan, playing a professional killer in THE MATADOR was far different from the polished, elegant secret agent 007 in the blockbuster film series. “I loved playing this character. Richard Shepard, gave me a gift, a real jewel at just the right time in life, I guess. The freedom that he has allowed me has been invigorating, liberating. It's been a romp.”
“This is, in a sense, the anti-Bond,” says Bryan Furst. “This film takes fearless, almost blank consciousness and has him reflect upon this crazy life of international intrigue and murder. Self-reflection in most spy movies is generally kind of brushed over. This is a story about a man who actually does these things and is coming to a point where he's starting to reflect on these things. James Bond is obviously the highly romanticized version of that life. So, it ended up being really perfect when we imagined Pierce as Julian.”
While Brosnan's comfort with handling a gun may provoke some familiarity, but it is the potent mixture of viciousness and self-loathing which Brosnan pours into Julian that makes all the difference. “He's a mad, discombobulated, arrested development guy,” Brosnan says. “But you just feel for him, especially in the third act, while he’s invading the quiet of lives of Danny and Bean.”
“With Danny, it plays to the comedy because Julian is so far out there that Greg's character becomes our eyes and ears, reacting to Julian as we might,” says Shepard. “It's the darkest version of a man like Bond. It's the complete opposite end of the sort of smooth and perfect superhero. Julian is a man who has no one, he's lonely, sad, a real mess. While he's audacious, it's because he doesn't have normal relationships, he doesn't know how to act in those social situations. The tragedy of Julian is definitely something I'm interested in.”
It was also the type of material, Brosnan says, “that makes you get out of bed in the morning wanting to push yourself as far and fast as you can. And at night, you go to sleep dreaming of the character and what the next day will bring.”
“Pierce completely jumped into Julian and has gone into places that I've never seen him do before,” says Shepard. “He's so funny and dark, so smart as an actor and he brings it all to Julian. Julian's a strange, dark, off-kilter guy and Pierce has achieved more with him than anything I had imagined. He gives Julian such twists and emotional comedy. There's a vulnerability that's refreshing.”
“There's nothing more exciting to us than taking an actor and watching him play against type in a way that really surprises people,” says Sean Furst. “James Bond is a staple, and an actor playing him can't depart too far into the nether worlds. The idea that Pierce would be willing to be bold and dig deep and create a character that at times is very dark, is so terrific.”
“At the core there's a familiarity to this type of character, an assassin, a killer,” says St. Clair. “And yet there's a humanity to it that Pierce hasn't been able to access in terms of the other characters he's played before in this genre.”
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