[on success] I`ve worked for it, and I wanted it. I had good luck and a bit of talent somewhere in the back pocket that I could kind of polish and nurture, but I dreamt and wished for all of this, then you get all of that and you`ve just got to show up and work. Hopefully you can stay at the table.

It never felt real to me. I never felt I had complete ownership over Bond. Because you`d have these stupid one-liners - which I loathed - and I always felt phony doing them.

It never felt real to me. I never felt I had complete ownership over Bond. Because you`d have these stupid one-liners - which I loathed - and I always felt phony doing them. I`d look at myself in the suit and tie and think, "What the heck am I doing here?" Such sentiments were nothing new. That was always the frustrating thing about the role. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson play it so safe. The pomposity and rigmarole that they put directors through is astounding . . . I can do anything I want to do now. I`m not beholden to them or anyone. I`m not shackled by some contracted image.

That`s it. I`ve said all I`ve got to say on the world of James Bond.

There`s nothing like going off and doing a film in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea or Santa Fe, it`s the best and most exhilarating. I mean it sorts the men from the boys, really, where you have to figure out who really wants to do it and who`s good at their job. When you go off to distant locations, especially if they`re tough, it weeds those people out, but hopefully you don`t have to weed anybody out, because you`ve got everybody on board who really wants to go out and work hard - fourteen-, sixteen-, eighteen-hour days in the wilderness, in a great city or some backwater, but those are the best.

And certainly in those dark days, in the `50s in Ireland, if you were a single parent living in that society, you were somewhat shamed and stigmatized. I can certainly relate it to my parents, especially my mother. The old man took to the hills and my mother never saw him again, and suddenly you are spoken about in the Sunday service in church, never directly but they would bring up the issue of being a single parent and of marriage falling apart.

It`s related to acting really. I wish I had his career. I remember being in "Remington Steele" (1982) and seeing Bruce Willis go out there and just do it. I thought, "He`s making movies and I`m still here". I just remember that. I remember, ironically, in 1986, I remember going into the old La Scala in Malibu. Bruce was there with Demi [Demi Moore], I had just been offered the Bond in `86 and he said to me, "Well done, man, you got out, way to go." I said, "Thanks, Bruce". Of course, two months later I was high and dry without any Bond in my life or even "Remington Steele". The next thing I see him and he`s off doing his feature films. I always wanted to do movies. I`ve stopped trying to pick myself. Hopefully, you reach a point in life where you leave yourself alone and make peace with your shortcomings, whatever they may be. Education is something for me. I left school at fifteen, sixteen, so I`m always feeling like I got to catch up, got to catch up, got to catch up. That`s something that, you know, you find yourself in a meeting and you`re like, oh boy, we`re going into deep waters. I haven`t read that piece of literature, that`s a piece of information I should have known.

When you look at Ian Fleming`s work, it`s there on the page. The martinis, the drugs, the cigarettes, the casino, the blood on the hands. But they never went there. Hopefully, they will go there with Daniel [Daniel Craig]. They have the product, they have the man, and I`m sure they will.

I don`t see myself as the Hunk of the Month.

[about the movie industry] There`s too many people in seats of power who just haven`t got a clue what they`re doing. They`re bean counters, and it just pisses me off because consequently our kids go to see this crap movie . . . there`s nothing with meaningfulness.

You`re not even allowed to show a bloody nipple. It`s pathetic. What Bond needs is a good, palpable killing sequence and a good sex scene - and it doesn`t have to be graphic, you can use your imagination. We had a good one in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) - a really classy, sexy scene.

I`ve been identified with James Bond or Thomas Crown for so long - suave, elegant, sophisticated men in suits. It`s like you`ve been giving the same performance for 20 years.

My mother was the prettiest woman in the town. He was a bit older than her. They made me. And he split.

Being an actor in Hollywood involves lots of things beyond acting. Charm really helps. And it`s a good idea to incorporate a little Bond into all your dealings.

For me, acting is doing.

[on George Lazenby] George seems to be an unhappy camper about Bond. He gets pissy and spits the dummy out. Tim [Timothy Dalton] was fantastic. He really had the balls to go out there and play it on the nose - Ian Fleming undiluted. But where were the laughs? Sean [Sean Connery] was brilliant, he played it dead on the money. And Roger [Roger Moore] really made it his own and went for the laughs. I think those two were the best.

We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It`s too terrible to imagine.

Acting allows me to explore new worlds, to discover characters by delving into their lives, and ultimately to become someone else entirely.

[on why he thinks he would have regretted winning the James Bond role in 1986] It`s a role better suited to someone who is in his 40s, old enough to have the confidence and the sophistication and strength to be able to stand there and just let the moment sit. Bond is a man with the greatest of confidence. And playing that takes practice. In 1986 I think I was 33 or something like that, and I still looked like a baby. Finally, I`m growing into this face of mine. That takes time.

When I found acting, or when acting found me, it was a liberation. It was a stepping stone into another life, away from a life that I had, and acting was something I was good at, something which was appreciated. That was a great satisfaction in my life.

Dark comedy is very difficult. You have to bring the audience in and push them away at the same time.

I was trained as an actor and I was led to believe that I had a number of performances in me. The fact that I`ve just given the same performance, well, maybe . . . If I can get away with it, why not? But I`ve reached a point now where I`d better start trying to find some performances and challenge myself.

(on his first trip to America and landing Remington Steele) The trip to America, it was such a great joy to go there with Cassie, to take that leap of faith and go to the New World--all that nonsense you read about in books. But again it was a liberation. In Los Angeles, I rented a car from Rent-A-Wreck, a lime green Pacer, with a cushion, because the springs were coming through, and I got a map and went on my first interview in Hollywood. Somehow I found my way out to Laurel Canyon. I got up to the top of Mulholland Drive and the car broke down, blew up. I did eventually get to the interview and saw a casting director from Mary Tyler Moore Productions. Boom! They were looking for Remington Steele. The last thing I was looking for was a TV series. I went to America thinking I was going to work with Scorsese. Taxi Driver I`d seen about 10 times and Mean Streets; that`s where my brain was at. I was going to do movies. But I needed work. I went through several more interviews and then Cassie and I came home to Wimbledon. Then the call came: Would I return for a screen test? And it was, `My God, what have we done? What have we done? What are we going to do?` Panic, panic, panic. Don`t panic! We`ll go to America. We`ll take the kids to America. So Cass, the two kids and I hopped on a plane and went to America.

I think that all the films I`ve ever made are personal, even James Bond, because it`s so much of myself, so much of who I am as a man and as an actor. You have to invest yourself in every character that you portray.

[on the widely criticized federal government response to Hurricane Katrina] This man called President Bush [George W. Bush] has a lot to answer for. I don`t know if this man is really taking care of America. This government has been shameful.

[on Casino Royale (2006)] I always wanted to go back, because it`s the blueprint of Bond`s character. It`s the one where Fleming [Ian Fleming] really painted in the details of what Bond was about, so I was disappointed that it didn`t happen, but you can`t go around with that in your heart. It`s all such a game really, and you win some, you lose some, you`re there, you`re not there. Getting the part of Bond and playing the part of Bond was a blessing and a curse, which I think [Sean Connery] has spoken about, and I`m sure Daniel [Daniel Craig] is just getting the full taste of right now. So, you know, one can really only look at the blessings in life.

There`s too many people in seats of power who just haven`t got a clue what they`re doing. They`re bean counters, and it just pisses me off because consequently our kids go to see crap movies.

I know most actors say otherwise, but I like sex scenes. Bond was supposed to be this great lover, but I always found the love scenes in those movies a little dull. It`s lovely to work out the fantasy of it all in celluloid and then go home to my wife.

This man called President Bush has a lot to answer for. I don`t know if this man is really taking care of America. This government has been shameful.

[2005] A few years ago I would have said I could imagine playing James Bond in a more ferocious way. Like a sort of Quentin Tarantino character - but now, at 52, I am definitely too old.

It would have been great to light up and smoke cigarettes, for instance. It would have been great to have the killing a little bit more real and not wussed down. It`s all rather bland. I remember doing a sex scene with Halle [Halle Berry] - I mean frolicking in the bed - and there was director Lee Tamahori right under the sheets with us. But the way we ended up doing it was almost like the old days in Hollywood - kissing the girl but still having your feet on the floor.

Mrs. Doubtfire was a wonderful, beautiful ray of sunshine in my career. For the first time I was in a studio picture and I was working with wonderful actors who were all working at the top of their game. It allowed me to do comedy and play a character who was viewed as a jerk.

I had to have some balls to be Irish Catholic in South London. Most of that time I spent fighting.

I think Daniel [Daniel Craig] is a very fine actor. These are rocky waters, but I think he will have the last laugh. You get twisted some way or another if you throw yourself into it. There`s going to be mishaps.

[on Seraphim Falls (2006)] I`ve always wanted to do a western, growing up as a boy in Ireland watching cowboys and Indians. When I left and went to London, Clint Eastwood came into my life with all of the great films that he made, and then of course I got my education in cinema and John Ford. The Irish are very much steeped in the cowboy genre, and historically of course we have the great rift of the civil war. Shooting the film entirely on location in Santa Fe enhanced my performance, because it`s just you and the landscape. This is a story of two very hollow men, men who have lost everything in life due to war. There`s nowhere to hide in a story like this and nowhere to hide as an actor. So you just hope you`ve done your homework well and that you`ve understood the story correctly and leave the rest to chance. It was a physically tough shoot in the sense that you are down in Santa Fe, it`s got an elevation and my character is being pursued throughout the film, so I was constantly running, just being pursued on foot or by horseback. And the condition was very cold or extremely hot.

[on Casino Royale (2006)] I`m looking forward to it like we`re all looking forward to it. Daniel Craig is a great actor and he`s going to do a fantastic job.

It never made it in to the papers, but I`ve had my face sliced open by a stuntman and a knee injury. But it`s all part and parcel of being Bond.

I was young, frivolous, and full of abandon - a hippie with long hair down to my shoulders and a little goatee beard. Why? Because I thought I was gay. But no, I`m not gay.

(1997 quote on his career) I`ve been very lucky in my life. Very lucky. I have been able to go through quite a few lives and still retain a certain identity and love of life. I have a new life, a new woman, a new baby. I also have a new realization, as a man and as an actor: This is where you belong. It`s a great feeling, knowing you don`t have to prove yourself or step on tippy toes to be seen or be heard. Just to be comfortable in who you are.

[March 2004] They`re too scared. They feel they have to top themselves in a genre which is just spectacle and a huge bang for your buck. But I think you can have your cake and eat it. You can have real character work, a character storyline and a thriller aspect and all kinds of quips, asides, the explosions and the women. We`re just saturated with too many overblown action films with no plot. That`s ludicrous. It`s so damn crazy! That`s absolutely sheer lunacy because "Casino Royale" is the blueprint of the Bond character. You find out more about James Bond in that book than in any of the other books. I would love to do a fifth Bond and then bow out, but if this last one is to be my last, then so be it. My contract is up. They can do it or not.

When people don`t believe in you, you have to believe in yourself.

. . . there`s that lovely line from that wonderful epic picture that I made called Grey Owl (1999) where they say to Archie Belaney, "A man becomes what he dreams. You have dreamed well." Part of the dreams go back to my childhood and when I left Ireland in 1964, I discovered the cinema. One of the first films I saw was Goldfinger (1964) - I didn`t want to be James Bond but the seed of cinema and pictures was sown there in Putney High Street. And then I discovered Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen and the movies.

Bond is an enigma. He`s smooth and bigger than life, but he`s vague as a personality. It`s a little like doing a period piece. Look, I`m thankful, the role made me an international star. I`ve been in the backwaters of Papua New Guinea and heard, "Hey, Bond."

I have nothing against Republicans, but this government has made decisions which we are to suffer the consequences of for a long, long time. You want to have faith in your leaders but it`s very hard to have faith in President George W. Bush. Look at what he`s done to the environment and this savage war that has started. You speak up as an actor and people will shoot you down hard and fast. But you don`t speak as an actor. You speak as a man, a working actor with a family.

Some people have a tendency to get knocked down in this business and sulk and whine, and they just create a rod for their back, really. You have to have broad shoulders and get through it.

[on why, after the 1987 demise of "Remington Steele" (1982), he appeared in a series of movies that were box-office flops] I had to make a living. I had the mortgage to pay, I had the school fees to pay. I had bread and butter to put on the table. You know your worth as an actor, but you have to get a job.

[about his deceased wife, Cassandra Harris] Cassie has made me the man I am, the actor I am, the father I am. She`s forever embedded in every fiber of my being.

There was only one Bond for me, and it was Sean Connery. That made the role daunting.

People should be allowed to marry and gay marriage should be out there. If a man or a woman has a good partner and they love each other with their heart and soul, let them marry. I am very much for gay marriage. I think the rest is censorship and conflict and really no one else`s business.

To my eye, women get sexier around 35. They know a thing or two, and knowledge is always alluring.

[on his good looks] I don`t see myself as the "Hunk of the Month".

[on his marriage to Cassandra Harris] Our marriage gives me a stability that makes me feel that I can tackle the world.

[On former James Bond George Lazenby] George is just an angry, old, pissed-off guy. He was never an actor, but some pissed-off Aussie who doesn`t know how to show his feminine side. I met him, and he`s got that kind of brittle edge to him.