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Sean Brosnan is
currently playing in Romeo And Juliet, and he performs Shakespeare's tragic
hero with stunning emotion. As well he might, for Sean knows death, and is
no stranger to tragedy or the loss of great love, either.
Sean, the son of James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, was just eight years old
when his beloved mother, Cassandra, died of ovarian cancer. Today he has her
name tattooed on his shoulder and a lipstick kiss from her in a journal he
kept as a little boy.
He is 23 now, and talks of his mother poignantly, believing that her death
has shaped his life. It has shaped that of his brother, Chris, and sister,
Charlotte, too - Cassandra's children from an earlier marriage to actor
Dermot Harris, brother of film star Richard Harris.
Chris, 32, a contestant on TV's Love Island, is a recovering cocaine and
heroin addict.
Charlotte, 33, also spent much of her 20s in and out of rehab clinics.
Sean himself was an angry, rebellious loner. Expelled from numerous schools
in his native California, he was sent to public school in England, where he
was suspended for punching another boy.
At 16, he almost died in a road accident after the truck he was in careered
off the road - forcing his father to postpone his wedding to his current
wife, Keely Shaye Smith. For six months, Sean had to lie flat on his back
and was warned he might never walk again.
'Being on my back helped me to work things out emotionally, because I wasn't
able to physically hide from things,' he says. 'I gave Dad a lot of trouble
when I was growing up. I refused to visit my mum in hospital on her birthday
- and it was to be her last.
'Because she was sick and couldn't come and play with me in the pool, I
thought she didn't want to see me, so I wouldn't see her. Not going to see
her on her birthday hurt me, but I did it because I was angry. I always felt
bad about that.
'Years later, all that time I spent in hospital myself made me confront my
anger. I had to let it go.' I'm with Sean in Nottingham, the latest stop in
the Romeo And Juliet tour. He says he prefers theatre to Hollywood, having
loathed his Irish-born father's celebrity as a child.
'Having James Bond as a father was tough,' he says. 'I never knew who was a
real friend, or who just wanted to know me because of my father. That's why
I'm doing theatre instead of going off to do a teen movie and jumping into
the Hollywood whirlpool.' Sean looks like a young clone of his father, but
disguises this beneath a hat, sunglasses and tatty jeans. He says hospital
made him strong; made him realise he was a good person.
He broke his ankles, wrists and four ribs in the crash, as well as suffering
a punctured lung, a ruptured bladder, a shattered pelvis, injuries to his
stomach, a dislocated back, a broken coccyx and damaged small intestine
(doctors had to remove four feet of it). He was not expected to live, let
alone walk. 'The doctor said there was a chance I'd walk, but it would take
a lot of work,' he says. 'So I thought, "I'm going to walk". It never
occurred to me that I wouldn't - but try walking and moving every day with
broken bones. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.' Pierce was by his son's
bedside every day in the immediate weeks after the crash. Sean says his dad
has a terrible temper, and he thought he'd kill him. He now says his father
is a 'very close friend. We've been through too much not to be friends,' he
says.
Sean was four when his mother's cancer was diagnosed. Her illness and the
threat of her death defined his childhood. 'I remember knowing Mummy was
sick but not knowing why. She was losing her hair and couldn't come out in
the garden. That frustrated me because I didn't understand why. We always
used to go swimming and then she couldn't one day - and never did again. I
used to think, "Being sick only lasts a couple of days, not all year".
'One of the nicer memories I've held on to is lying in bed with her when I
was eight. I was drawing pictures and she was meditating. We'd watch movies,
too. By then, she had no hair and was really skinny. It was just before she
died.' The bad memories he tries to shut out: the hospitals, the pain. 'She
was in agony,' he says.
'I remember her screaming and holding her stomach - rushing to hospital in
the middle of the night; people coming to pick me up at 3am and staying at
Dad's friends' houses.
'Dad stayed with her in hospital once for two weeks when she was having
chemo, and I stayed at this guy's house. I felt so homesick; it was the
first time I'd stayed away from home.
I was about six and remember saying, "I hate you, God. You're not my friend
any more."' Sean says he never cried as a child. 'My mother was so strong.
She tried not to let it affect the children.
Because she always put on a brave face, I thought that that's what you did
if you were in pain. As a little boy I never really cried, but I had one
hell of a temper - though I just kept it in. Instead, I'd refuse to eat or
speak.'
Sean didn't even shed a tear when, a few days after Christmas, he was told
his mother had died. Instead, he comforted his father. Sean was staying with
his brother and sister's famous uncle, Richard Harris, at the time. 'Richard
used to walk around in tracksuit bottoms and a stained T-shirt drinking
pints of Guinness,' says Sean, 'but he was great with kids.
'We were still opening presents and I remember being called in. Richard
said, "Your father wants to see you in the bedroom," and gave me a kiss on
the forehead. I walked into the room and remember Dad crying. He said,
"Mummy's in Heaven now with God." I said, "That's okay, Pierce suffered
dreadfully after his wife's death. 'My dad was very lonely,' he says. 'He
went from being Dad to being Mum and Dad.
But he also had to keep working and my brother and sister were at school in
England, so I had a nanny to look after me.' He says he hated it when his
father started seeing other women again. 'My dad would introduce me to his
new girlfriend and say, "We're going to dinner, okay?" Again, I didn't talk.
There'd be embarrassing silences.' He began to rebel at school. 'I'd do
everything from smoking to vandalising, to refusing to work or talk. I guess
I did it to get Dad's attention.' When he was 15 his exasperated father sent
him to board at Millfield School in Somerset. 'I got in more trouble there
than anywhere else,' he says. 'It was such a culture shock. I went from
being a California beach bum to wearing a tie every morning, having to wear
shoes and being called a Yank.' One Easter break, he arranged for a
Millfield friend to spend a week with him in Los Angeles. The accident
happened on the final night. 'We were driving back from a friend's party and
we went up to the Devil's Backbone, a huge hill that looks out over LA where
all the kids race cars. We sat up there, had three or four beers, and, on
the way back, as we drove round a curve in the road, we went over a 250ft
cliff.
'It happened in slow motion. We went head over heels and I was thrown out. I
hit the ground and the truck rolled over me. I remember feeling squashed. I
couldn't breathe.
'I got up and tried to walk, but both my ankles were broken. I was at the
bottom of a ravine, struggling to breathe. I thought, "I'm going to die". I
was too busy trying to stay alive to be scared. Then I believe I heard my
mother's voice. She said, "Everything is going to be okay. Just keep
breathing."
Eventually a helicopter airlifted me out.
They told me, "Your dad's here." I said, "Oh God, if this doesn't kill me,
he will." He'd got a phone call at 3am from my friend James, who had been
driving the truck.
'I just remember seeing his face, then they gave me the oxygen. I woke up
two weeks later. Dad was there, looking grey. I felt so bad.' While in
hospital, Sean lost five stone. He was in excruciating pain and felt
isolated and alone, despite the presence of people who loved him.
'I realised that we're all alone, really. You've got to learn to deal with
yourself and your own company. I'd always beaten myself up for not having
friends. And having a dad who's a megastar kind of makes you feel less It's
hard to explain - no one looks at the cute little kid anymore.
Realising that the only person you've got to depend on is yourself made me
strong.' Back in England, he tried to show Chris - who, in happier times,
had dressed him up in Batman outfits - how to be strong, too.
'I went from being the little brother to the big brother,' he says. 'Chris
was my legal guardian when I was at boarding school. He started doing
heroin, and lolling in front of the TV. I'd think, "What the hell's wrong
with you?"
'I was angry at him, and disappointed. I wondered how he could be so weak.
But now he's been clean for a year and says he'll always remember the day
when, in his eyes, I was no longer a kid. He was high on heroin and I was
trying to put him to bed. He said, "I don't need your help." I said, "I'm
the big brother now.
You're going to bed." And he did.
Earlier this year I told him not to do Love Island,' Sean continues. 'I
think it's tacky. But he needed the money and what better way to earn it
than on an island with six beautiful women? I think he'll stay clean now.
He's been at rock bottom. He was killing himself. He overdosed. He was
living in a crack house, with the wrong sort of people - stealing, taking
money off me and other people.' Single himself after two lengthy
relationships and now living in London, Sean says he's pleased his father
has remarried. 'Yeah,' he says. 'My stepmother can be quite bossy, but
that's okay with me. She and Dad love each other and get along great. I like
her. I suppose, when they got together, I felt things had changed. My
brother, my sister and I were in England. Dad and Keely had a son [Dylan,
nine], then a second [Paris, five].
We were spending less and less time going over to see them and it just felt
like a chapter was over.' Sean is due on stage soon and must prepare.
He says, 'It's nerve-racking every time I get up there. I always felt that
people came to watch me fail rather than succeed, and I still do. But when
you're the son of someone famous, it comes with the package - like being
asked if you want your drink shaken not stirred.' Now he's playing Romeo in
his professional-theatre debut and he says his father is really proud of
him.
He smiles again, and shrugs, 'I feel so lucky. I know it sounds corny, but I
do.' And his mother? 'I talk to her every day,' he says. 'She's constantly
with me.' I'm later told, not by Sean, that before every performance he
prays to Cassandra for strength.
I'm sure that she, too, is enormously proud of her son.
Romeo And Juliet is at Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds, until August 20.
Visit
www.britishshakespearecompany.com
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