How ‘Black Bag’ subverts Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond history

Pierce Brosnan is shaking and stirring up his role in the world of espionage.

After famously playing agent James Bond in four films, Brosnan is now heading up an intelligence agency in Black Bag, the new film from Steven Soderbergh.

The film follows two married spies, George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), who must work their marriage around the inevitable secrecy that is part and parcel of their jobs. When George receives a list of possible traitors within their organization — and it includes Kathryn — he begins to investigate the true identity of the turncoat.

Their boss, Arthur Stieglitz (Brosnan), is a force to be reckoned with — a menacing figure who demands precision and flawless work from his employees. But seeing Brosnan as the head of a spy organization can’t help but bring to mind his performance as one of the world’s best-known fictional spies.

“That’s the fun elephant in the room for sure,” Fassbender says of the unspoken connection. “And I think Steven’s definitely enjoying playing with that.”

Soderbergh confirms that he specifically reached out to Brosnan, hoping the actor would be up for subverting his role as 007. “I really wanted him to do it,” the director says. “We had him in mind very early on, and I was hoping that he would see it as an opportunity to play a different part of that spectrum.”

“I really felt it would be a smile for the audience to have Pierce playing that part where he’s the boss now,” Soderbergh continues. ” He’s not being told where to go and what to do. He’s the boss telling other people where to go and what to do. And he seemed to enjoy it.”

Soderbergh also pursued Brosnan because he wanted someone with enough gravitas and screen presence to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Fassbender and Blanchett. “I needed somebody that you would believe could rattle Michael Fassbender,” he explains. “One of the things I said to Pierce before we started is, ‘You never sit down. You make other people sit down. You are always standing, and you are always moving. You’re like a panther, and you stalk people, and you use the fact that you’re allowed to be up and around and other people have to stay put as a weapon.’ Michael and Tom Burke talked about how disconcerting it was to have Pierce pacing behind them and talking into the back of their heads. They felt like they were back in school.”

Fassbender confirms Brosnan’s uncanny ability to go from warm costar to intimidating boss with the snap of a finger. “It was the first time I met Pierce Brosnan, and he’s a class act,” the actor notes. “He’s very charming and easy-going, but when he comes into the room and he lets it rip, we were all a little bit like, ‘Whoa, this is scary.’ But he’s just a really, really nice man. And obviously bringing that legendary status to the film.”

Brosnan isn’t the only cast member with ties to previous spy films. Naomie Harris, who plays agency psychotherapist Dr. Zoe Vaughan, portrayed Moneypenny in three of the Daniel Craig Bond films, and Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton) starred in Netflix’s The Gray Man (and has also found his way onto several shortlists for the next James Bond).

However, Black Bag employs a far more cerebral, less action-packed approach to spycraft than films like The Gray Man and the Bond franchise. “Naomie and I have both had more interactions with real spies than any person probably ever should,” Page quips. “Because we’ve researched for these films in the past. We researched with some real secret service agents for this film. You may speak about combat and field duty on one film, and then, on this film is very much focused on the soft power spies. It’s very much about getting people to trust you as much as anything else.”

“It’s not about blowing things up and doing things yourself,” Page continues. “It’s about convincing other people to do things for you, convincing other people to do things that are a bad idea, convincing other people to talk more than they would normally talk and spill secrets to you because they trust you because you are their intimate friend. It’s very much about that power of manipulation in this film.”

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Adds Harris: “It’s less about the big bangs and explosions and more about getting into the deep psychology of each character.”

Fassbender echoes this, saying, “What I found interesting about this was that it was the psychological warfare going on and an opportunity to see really how these people operate mentally. [They’re] the brains behind the operations, if you like. We’re dealing with spies that are working within the engine room, not the ones out in the field, whether they be official or non-official.”

This was very intentional, stemming from David Koepp’s script and Soderbergh’s direction. In his research, Soderbergh was struck by how much psychology and interpersonal relationships dominate spycraft more than technology. “It’s the human intel part of it that is very significant,” he notes. “Even more so now, because all the working and retired spies that we talked to said the days of you having multiple identities and a safe with four passports in it doesn’t exist. You can’t pretend to be somebody that you’re not anymore. That just doesn’t work.”

“As a result,” he adds, “you have to embed somebody in the place where you’re trying to extract information and over a long period of time, they try to cultivate and turn a source. So I love that idea that technology has brought spycraft back to an older version of itself.”

Page draws a throughline back to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the work of John le Carré, which Soderbergh notes was a major touchstone for the project. “Spy literature has always been about loneliness,” Page says. “The loneliness of holding secrets, the loneliness of not being able to tell your loved ones the truth. Technology comes into that less and less because technology is a tool for doing things, but the technology will always be wielded by people. People will be the weakest link in that chain if you can get them to do things they shouldn’t do. I don’t think that’s changed very much. ”

Whether a film leans more to the whiz-bang approach of the Bond franchise or the more grounded approach of Black Bag, there is one constant — impeccably tailored menswear. “Pierce wanted his suits,” says Soderbergh. “He’s like, ‘I want all these suits.’ So that’s always a good sign.”

Black Bag hits theaters on March 14.