Pierce Brosnan Wasn’t ‘Very Nice’ to Teri Hatcher While Filming ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’

A movie set is a highly-charged emotional space. There are often big egos competing for dominance in a small space over long hours, and tensions are bound to run high from time to time. Sometimes, these feuds and cold feelings even make their way into the film’s final cut, but often the stars are professional enough to keep their jabs and slights away from the camera. 

When filming Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan later reflected on how he acted toward co-star Teri Hatcher. He said some things that “weren’t very nice” to Hatcher on the set. What was behind his icy reception of the star?

‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ came out in 1997

The James Bond legacy has been a long and storied one, and Pierce Brosnan’s time in the role began in 1995 with GoldenEye. Brosnan would reprise the part throughout the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, eventually starring in four films that spanned until Die Another Day in 2002. 

The second installment of this four-film franchise was 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies. As IMDb shows, Brosnan shared top billing with stars Michelle Yeoh (who played “Bond Girl” Wai Lin) and Jonathan Pryce (who played maniacal villain Elliot Carver). 

Teri Hatcher played a supporting role as Paris Carver, former lover to James Bond and current wife to Elliot Carver, the media magnate determined to start an international war to serve his own ends. Through a complicated plot (it is, after all, a James Bond movie), Bond ends up pulled back into his former flame with Paris only to see her used as a trap against him, which leads to her murder. By the time the film ends, Bond’s confrontation with Elliot is as much one of revenge as it is an effort to stop global chaos. 

Pierce Brosnan was unkind to Teri Hatcher on set

James Bond and Paris Carver shared an intense and complicated connection rooted in passion and attraction, but that did not seem to flow over into their real-life counterparts. Pierce Brosnan became increasingly frustrated with Teri Hatcher, who often showed up late and left him “waiting for hours,” as The Mirror reports. 

Frustration with this apparent disrespect for the schedule and others’ time eventually pushed Brosnan to the edge, and he “let slip a few words which weren’t very nice.” However, it turned out there was an explanation for the tardiness. As Brosnan explained, “Then it came out one morning that Teri was pregnant and she hadn’t been feeling very well.” Whether that made him regret his harsh tone isn’t clear. He ended the reflection with a nonchalant, “still these things happen.”

Teri Hatcher expressed regret over ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’

Perhaps because of the tension on the set, Teri Hatcher’s performance was a source of regret for the actor. As The Irish Examiner reports, Hatcher found the role dissatisfying: “It’s such an artificial kind of character to be playing that you don’t get any special satisfaction from it.”

Whether Hatcher had a good reason for being late to the set of the 007 flick or not, she has certainly earned a reputation as a difficult star to work with. She would go on to star in Desperate Housewives, where on-set drama surrounded her at every turn. As E! News reports, her Housewives co-star Nicollette Sheridan went so far as to call Hatcher the “meanest woman in the world.” At times, the drama about Hatcher’s relationship with the series’ other stars overshadowed the show itself.