Pierce Brosnan Reveals Catholic Faith Helped Him Face Life's Tragedies
Film actor Pierce Brosnan revealed that his Catholic faith helped him deal with a number of life's tragedies, including losing both his first wife and his adopted daughter to ovarian cancer.
"I would say faith, being Irish, being Catholic, it's ingrained in my DNA," Brosnan responded to a question about what helped him through his dark days, according to NY Daily News on Monday.
Brosnan, most famous for starring in the "James Bond" series, made the comments at the New York premiere of his new film, "A Long Way Down," where he plays a depressed television personality contemplating suicide.
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In June 2013, Brosnan lost his adopted daughter, 41-year-old Charlotte Emily, who at the time was the mother of a 14-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son.
"On June 28 at 2 p.m. my darling daughter Charlotte Emily passed on to eternal life, having succumbed to ovarian cancer," Brosnan told People.com back then. "She was surrounded by her husband, Alex, children Isabella and Lucas and brothers Christopher and Sean."
His first wife, Cassandra Harris, died in 1991 also from ovarian cancer.
"She has made me the man I am, the actor I am, the father I am," Brosnan said about his former wife. "She's forever embedded in every fiber of my being. She's there with me every day. I was so blessed to have met someone like that."
The actor has spoken candidly about his faith before, and said that he turns to prayer in tough times.
"[Prayer] helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer and with a child who had fallen on tough times. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor and to be a man," Brosnan told RTE.ie in March 2011.
"It always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith."
He added: "God has been good to me. My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer … I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith."
"A Long Way Down," directed by Pascal Chaumeil, opens to a limited release in the U.S. on July 11.
