♪♪ -The first time that I ever got a look at you, you were sitting across a table in a film called "Dr.

No," and suddenly, the camera came on, and -- and you identified yourself.

You gave your name as... -Bond.

James Bond.

-And from that moment on, you were James Bond.

You know, a fair question is, did Sean Connery make James Bond or did James Bond make Sean Connery?

-Sean Connery is unique amongst the biggest movie stars.

He invents the macho secret agent of the '60s... [ Hand thwacks ] ...and within months of the release of the first couple of pictures, he was just about the most famous man in the world.

-Do you think you can escape this character?

Your face is James Bond.

As so many people, I'm wondering if you'll be accepted as somebody else.

-He had his star persona imprinted with the image of James Bond, and throughout his entire career, he certainly tried to distance himself from James Bond.

-It's a problem because I don't think any other actor has had such a sort of exposure in the world, as in this case.

I mean, it's like some sort of Frankenstein.

♪♪ But, uh, that shouldn't and never would stop me from making another picture.

♪♪ -I kind of look upon the creation of James Bond, and I think you're left with that awful dilemma that when something becomes iconographic, you can't get away from it.

[ Gunshot ] ♪♪ [ Singing in French ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Sean was the hero of our times, you know, early '60s, when he started working on all the Bond films.

He was the thing, you know, for every young kid.

Like, the equivalent these days would be sort of like the Marvel characters or, you know, that kind of popularity.

-♪ James Bond ♪ -After the war, when everything was pretty dreary and drab, the excitement of places like, uh, tropical islands or adventure, romance, had a great appeal.

And the same applies to the film.

Had it come out a year later or a year earlier, it might not have been as successful.

-♪ Mr.

James Bond ♪ -The 20th century was the most stressed century in human history, in terms of wars, and in the 1950s, when James Bond was created, that's when the books were being written, before the movies were actually started.

There was a real sense of angst, paranoia, and agitation.

And so when Connery's Bond came into that, it was really feeding off the sense of suppressed anger.

♪♪ It was also a period of conservatism, and there was a northern revolution in England, where it was about breaking down the conformity that came before.

And this was happening exactly when Sean Connery arrived on the scene.

In fact, it's no coincidence that Connery's "Dr.

No" was released in October 1962, the same week that the Beatles' "Love Me Do" went into the charts.

So when people talk about that moment when it could have been Cary Grant or David Niven playing James Bond, that was the kind of fading idealism of the 1950s.

It was just a moment that Bond could have been destroyed if it had gone that way.

He was the right man at the right time for, really, a cultural revolution.

♪♪ -Another thing that you saw during the Swinging '60s was this idea of a more liberal sexuality.

-You look surprised.

I thought you were expecting me.

-So, for instance, sex and sexuality play a huge role in the world of James Bond.

Bond sleeps with good and bad women in order to gain a piece of information, in order to gain access to resources, maybe gain access to people.

On the one hand, it confirms his libidinal masculinity, but on the other hand, he enacts physical violence as well as sexual violence against women.

-Behave yourself, Mr.

Bond.

-It creates this impression that, with enough words, with enough force, with enough manipulation, you can turn a no into a yes.

And when we look at the Sean Connery films, these acts of violence are oftentimes played off as being warranted, as being humorous, and, at the end of the day, as being okay.

-Is there something I can do for you?

-Yes, a matter of fact, there is.

There is something I'd like you to get off your chest.

-Oh!

-It's difficult to say this in these days, but one of the attractive things about Bond is, there's a kind of sexy sadism in the way that he performs the role.

-Where is Ernst Stavro Blofeld?

-[ Gasping ] -Speak up, darling.

I can't hear you.

-Connery has always been at pains to point out that he's an actor playing a part.

"The sadistic stuff, the romantic stuff, the womanizing is not what I am like," he would say, "in real life.

Nonetheless, I can't think of any British actor before Sean Connery who knew how to throw a punch.

[ Both grunting ] He knows how to handle himself in a fight because he's big, because he's muscular.

You really do believe he wants to punch that guy to the floor.

He wants to destroy this enemy.

There's some kind of animal anger that comes out in the performance that must be an expression of something from deep within, other than his pure height and his pure muscularity.

♪♪ -This is no ordinary house.

This is the home of a world-famous movie actor.

The man we're going to visit today, you've seen many, many times.

As a matter of fact, he's probably spent more hours on American movie screens in recent years than any living actor.

His name is Sean Connery, and he lives in this modest home with his family, two small children and a beautiful blonde actress wife named Diane Cilento.

[ Doorbell rings ] -Ah, Lee, you found the place.

Come in, come in.

-Yes.

Took about 30 minutes to get out here.

-Good.

You're just in time for a drink.

-Oh, that is good news.

I don't suppose you have a little scotch on the premises, do you?

-Strangely enough, I have.

Sit down.

-Thank you.

You know, Sean, many people who have enjoyed your success seem to take on a life of opulence with large estates and lots of big fast cars and other luxuries.

You seem to avoid all that.

Why don't you treat yourself quite that well?

-Well, I think I've treated myself very well, in that, uh, the most important thing for me is space, and I have it here.

I have a place to dress, I have a place to sleep, I have a place to wash, I have a place to eat, a place to relax, and a place to work.

And I got everything here.

-Does the fact that you're Scotch have anything to do with it, do you think?

-Probably, yes.

Coming from my background, I'm living like a king.

♪♪ -Sean Connery grew up in an area called Fountainbridge, which sounds romantic, but, in fact, it was a working-class area.

It was not the tourist Edinburgh, the medieval city, or the classical city.

It was a really hard-working place.

His father worked in this terrible rubber factory making tires, and his mother, actually, cleaned for the Polish army.

And by the age of 7, he was a milk boy, running the milks around all the town with a horse and cart, and paying for the family, and growing up in that kind of way, instilled in him that money is very hard-earned, and you deserve what you get.

And I think that's what really drove him in the future.

What he disliked of all was people with privilege bossing him around, especially when he joined the Navy.

And I think he got the ulcers from all the people that he was being bossed around by, and he got invalided out of the British Navy.

He was hospitalized for two months, and when he came out, the British Legion said, "We've worked out you've got three possibilities.

You could be a barber, a tailor, and we think you could also be a very good French polisher."

So he ended up polishing coffins.

And he said, "That's the most ridiculous thing.

What am I doing with my life?"

It cost half a crown, or about 50 cents, to go back to Edinburgh.

He preferred to sleep in the coffin during the night and saved some more money and come back on the weekend.

♪♪ -And I was working for a newspaper in Edinburgh then, not as a journalist, but in the machine room.

And I was down for the Mr.

Universe contest, representing Scotland, the tall man's class.

And then I heard about auditions for "South Pacific."

Some of the chaps who were weightlifters and were in the show and said it was running for another three months, and I thought that sounded quite fun, you know?

So I went along and auditioned and said that I was an actor, and that was how I started.

But I had no intentions of being an actor then, I don't think.

-Sean wanted the money, and he wanted to do something that would be a job that would hold him.

But during that period, he met Robert Henderson, who had one of the bigger roles in "South Pacific."

And he had an awful lot to say about Sean, because, really, he was Sean's kind of de facto father and guardian, and he gave him a series of books from Homer's "Odyssey" to Melville and, of course, James Joyce.

But the books that gave Sean the grist to the mill was Tolstoy's "War and Peace."

And Robert Henderson said to me, with a smile, but also great insight into Sean's nature, he said, "Sean came back and said to me, '"War and Peace" ends in the wrong place.'"

And Robert said, "I realized that he was understanding the processes that authors use to create effect and to emphasize character."

This is what really fired him in his ambition to be an actor.

-My father and my uncle and myself did give him that same royalty he wears and when he was not 6 and 20 strong, sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, a poor unminded outlaw sneaking home.

My father gave him welcome to the shore, and when he heard him swear and vow to God, he came but to be Duke of Lancaster.

-After a couple of years with bit parts in the theater, he got his first movie role.

-Look at him -- blind, deaf, and twice a granddad.

Hey, Pop.

-What do you want?

-These were all essentially bit parts.

-[ Gasps ] -A little drink, huh?

-Go away.

-But movie roles always pay better than the theater.

But they were getting a little bit bigger each time.

Perhaps the most important film he makes that more predicted the way he was going to go is a film called "The Frightened City," in which he is a gangland hood working in London's Soho, wandering around town looking like a caged animal.

-I wasn't aware the lift was out of order, Mr.

Davis.

-Don't move.

-But at the same time, because he's ever so nattily dressed, he looks like a caged animal fresh off Savile Row.

-You suffer from the taint of gentility, Mr.

Zhernikov.

The word is murdered.

-In other words, he smartly dressed, his hair is nicely in place, which is what Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the Bond producers, are realizing they need for the part of James Bond.

-It's a Smith & Wesson.

And you've had your six.

[ Silenced gunshot ] ♪♪ [ Silenced gunshot ] ♪♪ -When he went to meet Albert Broccoli up in his offices, he already knew who he was.

He was so nonchalant, it was just like... And when he left, Albert Broccoli said to his secretary, "Come here.

I want to show you something."

And he took her to the window, and he said, "Watch.

In a moment, you're going to see Bond walking across the street."

And they watched, and then Sean came out of the building, and he walked across the street.

And he said, as James Bond... -Now, incidentally, that's not Fort Knox.

It's a film set here.

And I'm not James Bond.

He's a fictitious character.

-Sean wasn't ready, in some way, that the Bond thing overtook him.

And the one thing that he had reacted badly to was Harry Saltzman saying that Bond could be another Tarzan, by which he meant another extended franchise-type character.

And Sean hesitated at that moment because he was getting very good crits in theater, and he was a serious actor.

-The last play I did was a French play, Giraudoux.

I tried to do two plays at Oxford a year, in the theater, and two television plays and one film, if I can.

-In between Bond movies, he tries to break out of the Bond mold.

He makes a film called "Woman of Straw."

She's rather a nice, intriguing little thriller, but Connery's attempt to translate himself away from Bond are hampered, A, by the fact that the character he's playing is a very urbane, gentlemanly figure, and, B, by the fact that the clothes he wears in "Woman of Straw" are actually the clothes he's going to wear in "Goldfinger" three months later.

The suits are exactly the same.

-Congratulations.

-Thank you.

-He then goes to Hollywood.

He's tempted by no less than Alfred Hitchcock, who's about to make "Marnie."

What he hasn't worked out is that, by the middle of the film... -Well, we certainly can't have anything bothering you, can we?

-Connery's character is slapping the leading lady, he's barking orders at her, and then he actually rapes this woman.

In other words, he thought he was going to America to appear in an arty Hitchcock picture, and he's just ended up making another Bond movie.

♪♪ -It's unquestionable that Hitchcock didn't really understand Sean.

And Sean had a very clear view of what his acting possibilities were, so he set out to break the Bond image himself.

-See that hill?

-I noticed it as I came in.

-We built it special.

A few tons of sand and rock and a lot of labor and sweat.

The prisoners built it.

-Well, that's marvelous, sir.

It's a great construction feat.

-I think it's significant the fact that the film that Sean really has passion for was "The Hill," which is this strange camp which apparently existed of punishing people of the British Army somewhere in Tunisia, where they are forced to take sand up and down a hill till they break.

That showed his experience, I think, of the British Navy, where he was being pushed around by people who went to posh schools and had no experience of work.

So that really kind of boils over and really informs "The Hill."

-Stand up and stand still or I'll -- -Yes, there you are!

On my feet!

So what's the charge?!

Failing to obey an order?

Or, no, drunk in charge of a cigarette lighter?

Oh, you crazy bastard!

You'd prop up dead men and inspect them if you was ordered to.

-Right.

You're right!

-I was so busy with the Bond films because they were coming back to back, and they gradually got more and more tiring, harder work.

The last one took six months, and it was difficult to jump and fit in films, and consequently the work suffered.

But "The Hill" was an exception in that it was only a seven-week picture.

But we had the rehearsal period of a week, and very good actors had a say in casting.

-Sean immediately liked Sidney Lumet because Lumet had a very, very specific way of dealing with actors.

He believed that everything was the actor.

And this related exactly to the way Robert Henderson had tutored Sean in how to appreciate drama and literature as windows to life, to understanding the existential experience.

"The Hill" is Sean's first acting performance, and people were saying, "Oh, this guy, he's not just James Bond, he's also an actor."

-Of course, when somebody speaks with you, it's a certain name.

It's not possible to pronounce it.

It's, of course, the name of James Bond.

It's finished now for you.

-Yes, for me, it's finished.

♪♪ -Unh!

♪♪ -He was, of course, thrilled with the success of Bond, but he wanted to get out of it, and it was very hard to get out with the contract.

So he was forced to do it.

[ Explosions, gunfire ] -While you were making the Bond films, you made "The Hill," and you made "A Fine Madness," both of them good pictures.

Both were well-reviewed, but none of them could touch a Bond film at box office.

They just didn't turn out the profit.

Now, do you think that's an indication that you are locked into James Bond for life?

-Uh, well, I'm certainly not locked into it for life, but this is a thing one has to be realistic about.

There's no doubt about it that this Bond phenomena, you know, it's never happened in the history of the cinema before.

So, I mean, I have to, uh, fight it, as it were, on its own terms.

♪♪ -The Bond dilemma is the fact that the figure of James Bond is like an elastic band.

No matter how Sean Connery tried to pull himself away from it, it always came snapping back.

And so no matter how far he tried to push away from it, tried to take on different roles, everybody just wanted to talk to him about being James Bond.

And a lot of this came from the marketing, where they put forward this idea that James Bond and Sean Connery were one and the same.

So, on the posters for "You Only Live Twice," they didn't include the name Sean Connery, and he was incredibly frustrated by that.

He was really launched into global superstardom, and he had the media and the press of the world looking at him all the time, and that's a lot of pressure for him to weigh on his shoulders.

-Today, he is supposed to rest under my order.

Now, he's an actor.

He's here to do a job.

He's not just a publicity, uh, idol for them.

Now, he's here, and he has not been given the privilege and respect for a certain amount of privacy.

-He could go nowhere without being accosted and being called "Mr.

Bond," which he detested.

He detested being called "Mr.

Bond," even by kids who would innocently ask him, "Will you sign this, Mr.

Bond?"

And when Connery was living with his first wife, Diane Cilento, he could not stand opening the curtains in his house.

And there was a high wall, and there would be people at half seven in the morning sitting on the wall, trying to see him.

-Do you find it difficult when you're both working?

Does it tend to pull you apart, or eat up so much of your time that there's no home left?

-We seem to be able to work it pretty well.

It's, uh... When I go on locations.

-Well, it's all smooth.

There's never any problems.

-There's terrible problems all the time.

-Is that so?

I'll make a note of that.

-But, uh -- [ Chuckles ] But we seem to work it out, finally.

-But you never appear in films together, even though you're both top run in the field of acting.

-The relationship with Diane was probably the most important in Sean's life.

It was also the most difficult.

She was a movie star.

She had a career going since the early '50s.

And when Sean accepted "Dr.

No," he found himself in direct competition with her.

-If we did work together, I think it would create a sort of nonstop work chat going on, and there'd be no time to be ourselves, really.

-What do you say about that, Sean?

-It's absolutely true, and I always have to win, so it would be a terrible scene.

-You have to win every argument?

-Yes.

-Eh... -You don't seem to be too big for trophies and awards and autographed pictures hanging all over the place.

Do you like to sort of leave that stuff behind when you come home?

-I haven't got any.

-You haven't got any?

-Well, we've had trophies, things, and awards and best box office thing and actress award for Broadway now, but... -It seems to me that you've got quite a string of them.

-His mother collects them.

-Oh, I see.

She gets them all.

-Well, she's got a ton of things, but, uh... And there's no place for them in this house.

-It bothered Sean that he had a phenomenal success, and then, immediately after, that she had an Academy Award nomination for "Tom Jones."

So his feathers are ruffled because he's getting popular success.

So he's up there with the Beatles, but it's not quite good enough.

And at one point, in a difficult moment in his relationship, he has been accused of hitting her in an argument, and of course, that's inexcusable.

He went to great pains afterwards to investigate his own anger.

So he tried various therapies.

He bought an Orgone Box.

The theory is, you sit in, like, a steel-lined phone box, and it compresses orgasmic energy and puts energy into you on a higher level.

Then Ronnie Lang, who was a very popular psychiatrist, introduced lysergic acid, LSD, to Sean.

-I'm not James Bond.

He's a fictitious character.

-But his metabolism was such that he was two weeks in bed afterwards.

And I think, by all accounts, he tried to work through self therapy to get at grips with Bond, but he truly hated it.

By the time he did "You Only Live Twice," the director, Lewis Gilbert, told me Sean wasn't listening to him about a scene they were shooting, and he said, "I realized that he had left the picture."

He was also going through such changes with his relationship with Diane.

He was understanding that they could never live with each other.

It would not work.

So he was looking for a way out.

And with Sidney Lumet, he found a script called "The Offence."

-It's the antithesis of Bond.

He's a down-at-heel cop, and a young girl has been killed.

The police bring in a suspect on very little evidence, and Sean Connery's character decides, almost on a whim, that this man is guilty.

He doesn't bother to go through the police procedure.

He basically takes this man in a room and beats a confession out of him.

-I'm going to make you see what you've done.

I'm going to make you feel like that little child felt you.

I'm going to make you feel pain.

You have to feel pain -- pain like she felt -- to understand, to know.

Yes, to know what you've done.

-It's very violent.

It's very brutal.

They're some of the most harrowing scenes ever committed to celluloid.

-Ohh!

-There are scenes of not violence, but suppressed violence with Vivien Merchant, who plays Sean Connery's wife, where you feel this man, his rage is -- It's not even bottled.

It's about to explode.

-Will you stop?!

Will you leave the bloody coat?!

-It's not the stylized violence of Bond.

It's far more the unstylized violence of kitchen-sink drama.

-I've seen it.

I know.

You can't talk to them.

They'll laugh in your face.

You can't expect -- I mean, what are they?

Little better than animals.

Now, any man would -- pain?

Understand pain.

You hurt them.

Hurt them.

Talk to you then, tell you anything.

-Johnny, for pity's sake... -It really does feel like Connery is working out the tensions of the past 10 years in what's become an increasingly harrowing, you might even say tragic, marriage to Diane Cilento.

-He was at his most raging, blazing, dangerous even to himself during that period.

Much of it to do with resentment for the success of James Bond and resentment for the money he wasn't earning.

I mean, he'd only been paid $15,000 for "Dr.

No," not an awful lot more for "Goldfinger."

And by the time "Thunderball" happened, it was such an international phenomenon.

His image was everywhere in the world.

But he got nothing, not a cent, on the merchandising of his own image.

-He wants a percentage on the movie.

He wants a percentage on the clothes they're selling.

He wants a percentage on the toys they're selling.

He wants a percentage on everything Bond.

So he leaves in 1967, after "You Only Live Twice," and Saltzman and Broccoli decide, "Maybe we can make a Bond movie without Sean Connery."

And they try it with this unknown Australian actor called George Lazenby.

They make a film called "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," but it didn't do great guns.

And all the critics said it's a nice enough thriller, but where's Sean Connery?

And so he comes back for "Diamonds Are Forever," for what was then the record amount of a million and a quarter dollars.

-Hi.

I'm Plenty.

-But of course you are.

-Plenty O'Toole.

-Named after your father, perhaps.

-Would you like some help?

On the craps, I mean.

-It's very kind of you.

-This is your own sixth Bond film.

That leaves, by my reckoning, five Ian Fleming novels still unfilmed.

Is there any chance that you'll be turning up in those, too?

-No, no.

I came back for the one.

That was the understanding.

And I'd do the one, and... I've got other things I want to do.

[ Gunshot ] -"Zardoz" was probably the first picture he did after leaving Bond.

I looked at what was going on, and you could see how the rich were getting richer and the poor, on the whole, were getting poorer.

And I just projected this into the future, where the elite were able to achieve this eternal life in a sealed-off environment, and the rest survived as best they could.

So, Zed, played by Sean Connery, penetrates these Eternals who live in this place, and they bring him out to examine him.

-This Brutal... like other primates living unselfconscious lives, is capable of spontaneous and reflexive erection.

As part of May's studies of this creature, we're trying to find once again the link between erotic stimulation and erection.

-And he's looking at Charlotte Rampling with obvious sexual desire.

And then, she looks not to his face but down low.

And she's shocked to see something going on there.

These Eternals have no sexual desire.

It's something she's probably never experienced before.

So the end of the film is Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling in a cave.

It's like a story of a life.

We saw them aging, and we shot it with a fixed camera.

So we had to stop the camera, take them out, do the makeup, put them back in, shoot a bit more, and then take them out again.

So that fixed camera was there all the entire day.

And Sean hated doing this scene because he hated anything touching his skin and everything, and he was miserable and gruff all day.

Anyway, we sent it off to the lab, and it got scratched.

[ Music slows and stops ] Sean was going off for some golfing competition, and he was all ready to go, and I had to go to him and say, "Sean, um, that film was scratched, and we have to do it again."

He was furious.

[ Slate clacks ] He sat in there and went through the whole thing again.

So we spent another day doing that shot, and the camera assistant took the film off the camera and exposed it accidentally.

It meant that we had to do it again.

[ Slate clacks ] So I told Sean that.

He said, "I'm going to kill him."

And he went after this boy, and he chased him round the set.

And the boy got away and went to America.

He changed his name and was never seen again.

[ Slate clacks ] -There is nothing better than working with people that are professional, responsible, enthusiastic.

There's nothing worse than dealing with people who are incompetent, not interested in what they're doing.

It's boring, depleting.

Suicidal for me.

♪♪ -People sometimes make the mistake of reading him as being a glitzy, glamorous character who flies through women's bedrooms and kills the villain.

And the truth of it is that Connery is the character who is aspiring for some understanding of his place in the universe.

That is absolutely exemplified in "Zardoz."

That was really the payoff of his years of therapy.

That's also in the period that he found a new life with Micheline, his second wife.

And I think that it liberated him to concentrate on finessing his skills as an actor into more commercially digestible films.

They sit together like kind of clumps of movies in which he is playing, very much to the best of his game, in terms of a fully rounded character.

-You have nothing to say?

-In "The Wind and the Lion," He's playing a Berber, and he's playing that with the kind of frisson of world awareness and wisdom and a sense of compassion that's also in "The Man Who Would Be King."

He's a hard neck, he's wily, he's the guy who can guide them out of -- a bit of an idiot at times, but can guide them out of the tough spots.

-He shall pay 22 cases of compensation of four cows to each wife.

Which means she's got... -14 and two thirds, -14 and two thirds more infidelities to commit to come out even.

Let her husband see how he likes it when she's earning cows for somebody else.

Next case.

Christ, my father worked an honest day for 30 years and left behind an iron pot and a blanket and a bloody spoon.

-In "Robin and Marian," he was rushing into old age.

-No.

I told him this was my forest.

It's all I want.

I want to live here with you.

-He and Audrey Hepburn were kind of veterans of the rodeo of life, and they had learned so much from their long careers that the characters they were playing weren't really Robin and Marian going through this opportunity for late life, redemption, and love.

It was Audrey Hepburn and Sean Connery having suffered the vicissitudes and the pains and the disappointments and coming together and realize there's nothing as beautiful as good friendship.

♪♪ Sean was determined to be as variant as possible, so making films like "Robin and Marian," he was saying, "Sean Connery's Bond is dead.

It's an anomaly.

It's lost."

♪♪ -Sean Connery is back, bigger and better than ever in an action-packed Bond fantasy called "Never Say Never Again."

It has all the trimmings -- beautiful and dangerous women, exotic weapons, and thrills, spills, and sex, but not necessarily in that order.

-Oh.

How reckless of me.

I made you all wet.

-Yes, but my martini is still dry.

My name's James.

-Hello, James.

-I only found this out today.

The title has nothing to do with the movie.

It has to do with you.

-It has to do with me?

-Well, I mean, you saying you'd never do it again.

-Oh, that.

[ Both laugh ] -There are a lot of mixed motives that go into the idea of "Never Say Never Again."

First and foremost, Connery's salary had been going down and down as he'd made one bad decision after another, in terms of the movies he was going to star in, post Bond.

There was another motive behind it, which was, the Bond movies, without him, survived.

[ Gunshot ] They kept on getting bigger and bigger, and Roger Moore kept getting bigger and bigger paychecks, so that by the time of "Octopussy," he's getting a check for $5 million.

And Sean Connery is furious.

He's saying, "They're giving him the money.

I wanted this money.

Why can't I have it?"

And so he decides to make his own Bond movie.

And because he was the big-shot producer on this picture, he could pay himself what he wanted.

-I had complete casting approval, director and everything, and I'm very pleased to say that I got all the people I had on my first choice.

So I went back to the original concept, what I thought was the best of the Bond films, "From Russia With Love" style.

-And there's a perception that he was really trying to resurrect Bond, and it's not true.

He was interested in beating Broccoli.

-The eternal battle for the domination of the world begins.

-But it didn't work on any level.

It's visually a mess, and Sean is awful in it.

And that Fred Astaire wig... [ Bone cracks ] ...that looks like a cowpat.

I don't know how he got away with that.

And Broccoli beat it.

"Octopussy" earned about $20 million more than "Never Say Never Again."

That was the moment when I think Sean withdrew and rethought things, and he made a decision, which was a very fateful one.

-"Manu supra idolum agi primum et septimus de quatuor" is what?

-With "The Name of the Rose," He played Sherlock Holmes really in medieval times, but he was a different kind of character.

He is compassionate and patient and has a way with Christian Slater of being attentive and yet severe and disciplinarian.

-Please, dear boy, I'm trying to think.

-So am I, master, so am I.

-Then try using your head instead of your heart and we might make some progress.

-What struck me so much is how deft he is, and he dispensed information anecdotally, tangentially, but very powerfully, with a point there.

-Where are the books?

-Are you testing me, Master?

-What do you mean?

-Well, with all due respect, it seems that whenever you ask me a question, you already have the answer.

Do you know where the books are?

-Nope.

But I'll wager my faith that that tower contains something other than air.

-From "The Name of the Rose" on, Connery increasingly plays figures who are mentors.

♪♪ In films like "Highlander," where the young man is almost ready to be the superhero.

-Never lose your temper.

-In films like "Red October," where Baldwin is basically going to be James Bond, but only when he's been tutored by James Bond.

-Whatever.

Sit down, and do exactly what I tell you.

-In Indiana Jones... -Junior.

-Yes, sir.

-It is you, Junior.

-In films like "The Rock."

-I want a suite, a shower, a shave, and the feel of a suit.

-May I also suggest a -- a haircut?

-Am I out of style?

-Regardless of the fact that he's got away from Bond, it somehow surreptitiously reminds the audience, "This is the Bond we're watching, and he's now coaching young people in the way of being Bond for the future."

-Why do you want to join the force?

-Protect the property and citizenry of -- -Oh, please.

Don't waste my time with that... -Where are you from, Stone?

-From the South Side.

-Stone.

George Stone.

That's your name?

-He was evolving as an actor, and it all stemmed from his desire to honor the craft.

He was, you know, very disciplined, and he wanted people to be prepared, not unlike the character in "The Untouchables" that he played.

-Brian De Palma wanted the idea that one would be a kind of cuff around the ear type, almost Victorian figure, and, uh, which is not difficult for me.

[ Chuckles ] So I would always be picking them up on something just to keep them on their toes.

And it became a sort of rapport where, no matter what they did, I was going to find fault with in some way.

And it became a game.

-Don't wait for it to happen.

Don't even want it to happen.

Just watch what does happen.

-Are you my tutor?

-Yes, sir.

That I am.

[ Bolt clacks ] -Did you check it already?

-Yes, I did.

-Then leave it alone.

-Sean had a very dry, sarcastic sense of humor.

He was always jabbing, almost like the relationship of the Malone character to Kevin and Charlie and myself.

I think he was exploring the Malone types in other parts in his life.

There was a heroic element to it.

There was a toughness about him.

There was a wisdom about him.

I think those qualities Sean would find in parts that he would play, and he would be cast that way.

-What is it?

-Yoko tree.

The bark is 3% pure caffeine.

Cures headaches, fatigue, aches, pains, neuritis, neuralgia.

Drink it.

It'll keep you on your feet till dinnertime.

-Pass.

-Drink it.

-Pass.

-Drink it.

Or Palala will force you on your back, close your nose, while I pour it down your gullet.

-As well as being a mentor to young men, Connery becomes also a kind of mentor to young women in films like "Medicine Man."

-You take the hammock.

I'll sleep in the greenhouse.

-Well, if I need anything, I'll, uh, let you know.

-You will?

Good.

[ Chuckles ] Thank you.

-And a later film called "Entrapment," with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

But there's a layer of sexual tension there.

-Where do you sleep?

-Why?

-Just in case I need anything.

-It's not that he puts the moves on the girl.

It's more that the girls in question look up to him in ways that Sigmund Freud would have had things to say about.

-A job is a job.

You do your part, I do mine.

If one of us is thinking about something other than the task at hand, we'll either both get caught or both get dead.

Good night again.

-There's something Oedipal in Connery's mentoring of these young ladies in the films, which certain female critics have found, on the one hand, slightly questionable, slightly distasteful, and yet on the other, they always pull their punch at the last minute and say, "But the trouble is, Sean Connery still is so handsome, so sexy, so gorgeous," that you almost know why these 25-year-old girls would be looking at him in this way that I want to disapprove of, but I can't quite.

-The mentor that we would think of traditionally would be Merlin in Camelot, the old bearded, timeless sage.

But Sean brought something really unique and turning on the sex appeal, despite the beard and all the rest, and suggesting, no matter how old he was, he could be this sexy Merlin.

He has that agility and acuity that says, "Yeah, but this is Merlin with *****."

-Look out!

♪♪ -Your latest film, again, is an action movie.

I mean, you don't just continue career.

You continue playing action heroes.

You obviously like that genre of movie.

-Yeah.

-Unh!

-Yeah, the -- -[ Grunting ] -Yes!

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ -Aah!

-Rule, Britannia.

-And, of course, what you've never done in movies is change your voice.

-That's right, yeah.

-You've absolutely, in every part you've played -- -Because the emotion should be the same internationally.

That's what I believe.

A Russian is the same as a Scottish, is the same as an Irish, or a Pole, even English.

[ Laughter ] But I could never want to lose the sound, the music of what Scottish speaking is.

Now, what do you think you're doing, hmm?

You want to throw your garbage?

Throw it in a goddamn trash basket.

-You won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor playing an Irish cop with a Scots accent.

-We understand each other?

-And I said to him once, "Do you ever think of using a different accent?"

He said, "If I didn't talk the way I talk, I wouldn't know who the...I am."

-Well, I believe that the identity and everything to do with the Scottish psyche, health, future, and everything is based on independence.

And so I've been an investor in that with myself and financially, emotionally, and I've taken a lot of batterings for it, but I believe it's worth it.

-Although in maybe where you lived, you weren't so safe.

I mean, it was a fairly rough area, isn't it?

You lived in a tenement?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's very difficult to, uh, equate with anywhere else if you have nothing to compare it with.

-Sure.

-It's only when you get outside, and, really, that's what makes the world go round.

It's the people that go outside and... But not enough of them come back and try to change what's wrong inside.

-Bolt the door, if you're coming in.

[ Door closes, lock clicks ] -In the 1990s, Sean was approaching 70.

He was past conventional retirement age, and I felt he will end with some kind of conclusive epitaph.

And I remember seeing "Finding Forrester" and finding, "This is it."

-Uh... Well, my mom got tired of waiting for my dad to get himself clean.

And my -- my dad got tired of trying.

But that's when I started writing.

-What's your name?

-"Finding Forrester" is about an inner-city black male who is talented and smart but doesn't always feel free to demonstrate his intelligence.

And he befriends a reclusive author... -Move.

-...in his neighborhood, and they end up connecting.

It's an unlikely friendship, but a friendship that influences Jamal, I'd like to think, for the rest of his life.

[ Typewriter keys clacking ] -Go ahead.

-Go ahead and what?

-Write.

[ Keys clacking, margin bell dings ] -What are you doing?

-I'm writing, like you'll be when you start punching those keys.

-Oh.

[ Keys clacking ] [ Clacking stops ] -Is there a problem?

-No, I'm just thinking.

-No.

[ Chuckles ] No thinking.

That comes later.

-Sean mentored me all the time throughout the shoot about acting, about Hollywood, about filmmaking, but mostly about life and about me getting my education.

I grew up in foster care.

I was in high school, much like the character in the film, Jamal Wallace, and, you know, my trajectory was going to college and get a job.

But once I'm in a movie, you kind of say, "Hey, I can do this."

And Sean several times said, "Look, nobody told me, and that's why I'm telling you.

You get your education.

Hollywood will be there.

You go to school because that's the path that you're on, so you stay on it, and you finish."

And even after, he would call and check in to see if I did.

-Sean develops this relationship with Rob Brown and passes the educational baton exactly as had happened to him with Robert Henderson in the '50s that empowered him to do the career he did.

There was a sense of narrative linearity about his career, and he was on a lifelong quest for self-understanding.

-And more to come.

-Well, we'll see.

I'm reading stuff at the moment, and who knows which way the wind blows.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ -There's a very touching story told about the end of his life when his friend, the racing driver Jackie Stewart, came to visit him, and he had bad Alzheimer's at the time.

And so they had a meal together, and then Sean said, "Would you like to watch a movie with me?"

So they went up to Sean's bedroom and lay on the bed together and watched "The Hill."

-Any serious illnesses?

-Do you mean recently, sir?

-Jackie Stewart said they watched the film, and Sean fell asleep.

And then, the next day, Sean said, "Would you like to watch a movie?"

And, of course, in the haze of Alzheimer's, Jackie sat on the bed and Sean put on "The Hill," and Jackie said it seemed so appropriate because it was really the deepest part of Sean.

The James Bond phenomenon was Sean winning the lottery.

He put money on a horse, and the horse came in at 100-to-1.

But it's not really what he was there for.

He was there for "Finding Forrester."

He was there for "The Offence."

He was there for "The Hill."

-What do you like the most in life?

-What do I like most in life?

Well, I think life.

[ Chuckles ] I certainly prefer it to death.

-Especially why then?

[ Laughs ] -Um... I think a good, pleasurable feeling.

I would -- I would go for that, always.

If I know I have a good, pleasurable feeling, I will back it right down the line.

If I feel that I'm not, uh, warm or... pleasured and pleasurable, then I think there's something wrong, and that's when it should be investigated.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪