Sir Sean Connery Close To Retirement?

Story here from The Movie Blog.

The great Sean Connery, the original James Bond, might be finished making films. Sir Sean Connery is fed up with Hollywood and all the crap that gets greenlit and made. “I’m fed up with the idiots, the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and those who green light them. I don’t say they’re all idiots – I’m just saying there’s a lot of them.”

Although he does leave the door open for more films, it would probably take a Casablanca or a Godfather caliber script to persuade him. “It would almost need a Mafia-like offer I couldn’t refuse to do another movie.” Although I can’t say I will miss films like A League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen or to an extent Finding Forrester, I will miss his trademark Scottish accent.

I see Connery’s remarks go hand-in-hand with Lauren Bacall’s recent criticisms about Tom Cruise (Eric Olsen’s article here). Lauren Bacall – an old school actress with more talent than one could count – criticized Tom Cruise’s recent behavior in trying “to use your private life to sell anything commercially.” In his own polite way, Connery is making known his feelings by toward the way Hollywood (actors, studio executives, writers) has fallen from grace.

If this year is a disaster for the movie industry, piracy might not be the most dangerous thing, nor video games or the weather (referencing the horrendous rains in India, which is crippling Bollywood). The idea that there might not be anymore talented people in the industry today might be more disheartening.

To quote from Richard Burton of The Movie Blog: “Where have all the good movies gone… and where are all the great actors going?”