Brosnan backs Owen for Bond role

Pierce Brosnan believes that Clive Owen would be his ideal successor as James Bond.

“He could do it standing on his head,” Brosnan told reporters in Los Angeles, adding: “But he’ll have to wait.”

Owen, who played Detective Ross Tanner in the TV series Second Sight, is expected to become a major star with American audiences through his co-starring role with Angelina Jolie in the sweeping love story Beyond Borders.

But the earliest he will be able to step into Brosnan’s shoes is 2007 because Brosnan is not due to begin production on the 21st Bond film until January 2005.

In the meantime Brosnan will star in Mexicali, an action thriller in which he will play a successful businessman who witnesses a murder while on a sailboat with his wife off the coast of Mexico. After she goes missing he must save her and make his way back across the border before the killers catch up with him.