by Anthony Breznican
Pierce Brosnan can’t deny it. He’s one debonair son of a bitch.
007. Remington Steele. The architect heartthrob in Mamma Mia. Brosnan doesn’t dispute the characterization of his screen presence. In fact, he adds another title to the list. “Thomas Crown…” he says, sitting on an outdoor deck at the London hotel in West Hollywood as the sun begins to set. It’s not all an act: “I love clothes. I love style. I love the joy of that romantic lifestyle and those movies. It’s a part of me as an actor.” But he’s done that long enough. “You then have to dismantle it,” he says.
MobLand has allowed him to lean into the profane part of that identity, shoving aside the savoir faire and letting him bare his teeth and empty his clips with ruthless abandon. His gang leader Conrad Harrigan was always explosively unpredictable in the Paramount+ series, but with season 2 now under way, viewers are seeing Brosnan’s character fray at the edges as he becomes ever more chaotic and bloodthirsty.
“He’s dangerous. He has a short fuse. And now, as we begin to see in episode 2, he’s been diagnosed with this mental disfigurement of his brain and his psyche,” Brosnan tells Esquire.
In the latest episode, titled “Song 2,” Conrad gets a troubling diagnosis from his doctor. An MRI has detected “focal atrophy in the orbitofrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate gyrus.” In layman’s terms, the parts of his brain that regulate impulse control, aggression, and the fight-or-flight mechanism are breaking down, which adds a new dimension to Conrad’s recent mad-dog behavior. As if to demonstrate the corrosion of his better judgment, Conrad reacts by threatening to murder the trembling doctor.
Brosnan notes a hint of vulnerability in the gangster before he lashes out. “He’s still a gnarly, mangled, toxic, aggressive Irishman,” the actor says. “But it is a good scene, I must say. Everything goes back to the writing of [showrunner] Jez Butterworth. He writes these nuanced, lyrical, heightened dramas, which are almost like Jacobean drama, which is very graphic and brutal.”
Conrad hasn’t yet wandered madly into the wild heath outside his stately country home like King Lear, but he does have Helen Mirren’s gangster moll Maeve pouring poisonous thoughts into his ear nonstop. “She knows his buttons,” Brosnan says. “She knows she’s Lady Macbeth.”
Now it’s clear to both Conrad and MobLand’s viewers why he keeps rejecting advice to keep his rage in check. In episode 1 of the new season, a business partner’s casual insult resulted in a bullet-riddled bloodbath at the racing track, even as his henchmen pleaded with him to hold back. It’s beginning to make sense why Conrad has been leaving so many gruesome messes for Tom Hardy’s family fixer to clean up.
In another patient, this medical news might simply be the tragic mark of early dementia. In Conrad, this diagnosis is a bright-red, flashing warning light. To rise to such a position of power, the kingpin must have once modulated his brutality with shrewd and patient calculation. But those days are over.
Brosnan’s time as a savage, meanwhile, is just getting started.
