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At 70, Sean Connery remains magnetic on screen and the most formidable advocate of Scottish independence.

IF you did not know who he was, it would be easy to mistake Sean Connery for a hard-done-by, grey-bearded old gentleman who is a victim of a conspiracy to assassinate his character, drive him from his homes and generally make his life miserable. He radiates indignation as he lists the wrongs done to him by - among others - foreign press barons, the Government and Hollywood. But then, suddenly, his expression warms and he lapses into a friendly discussion of Scottish football, his golf game and current films.

Connery does not often give interviews, and, after talking with him in Los Angeles about his latest film, Finding Forrester, in which he stars and which his company produced, it is easy to understand why. He does not suffer fools gladly, and for the interviewer unaware of Connery’s convictions, it is difficult to know which subjects are likely to set him off. Even for those who know his foibles, seemingly innocent subjects can hit a raw nerve.

His life in Marbella, for example? “I don't have a house there any more,” he snaps. “I haven’t been to Spain for over three years. I took a hammering from the press there, and I never quite understood why.” But, he says, softening, he has happy memories of his early years there, when there were far fewer people living on that part of the Costa del Sol. He now lives in the Bahamas with his second wife, French painter Micheline Roquebrune, whom he married in 1975.

Although it is 50 years since he lived in Scotland, 70-year-old Connery, who was recently knighted, is fiercely proud of his roots. Born Thomas Connery, he was brought up in a tenement flat in a working-class area of Edinburgh and, famously, dropped out of school at 13 to work as a milkman on a horse-drawn float where he was known to the regulars on his round as Big Tam. For decades, he has backed the SNP [Scottish National Party] drive for an independent Scotland, both ideologically and financially, and the education trust he started there in 1970 is now worth, he says, £2.25 million and spends about £90,000 a year on educating youngsters. One of its most recent contributors, he reveals, was Mel Gibson, who donated $10,000 in exchange for permission to use a Connery film clip in his recent comedy What Women Want.

He says he suspects that it was his support for the SNP that delayed his knighthood for so long. “People questioned why the knighthood had taken so long to be offered to me and it was kind of strange,” he says. “Obviously, I’d crossed paths with somebody somewhere. I certainly didn’t go to them and I never made it an issue to find out why it had taken so long, but I took nearly a week to make a decision about whether to accept it. There were no conditions with it so I thought it was an honour that I would accept for Scotland. It wasn’t going to change what I am and what I do, and up to now I haven't used it.”

In some ways, Connery’s occasionally brusque manner resembles that of his character in Finding Forrester. William Forrester is a mysterious, reclusive author who, shortly after publishing a Catcher in the Rye-type coming-of-age novel, retreats into a shabby Bronx apartment where he lives for 40 years, unheard of by anyone except the publishing house. He develops a friendship with a talented black teenager who gradually brings him out of his shell.

“It’s certainly a change of pace,” says Connery, “but it’s the kind of movie that I like to see, about relationships. I think it’s an intelligent film - I like the humour of it.”

Although his performance was highly praised, it hasn’t garnered Connery, who won the best supporting actor award for The Untouchables in 1987, a further Oscar nomination. Which is another thing that does not surprise him. “You see the same faces coming up for the same stuff, and I don’t live in Los Angeles, so I’m not a member of the club.”

Although Connery has starred in films as rich and diverse as Marnie, The Man Who Would Be King, The Hill and The Anderson Tapes, it is for his seven turns as James Bond that he will always chiefly be remembered. Never Say Never Again (1983) was his last, although he was offered large sums of money to continue in the role and, more recently, to play a Bond villain. “There comes a time when you have to make certain decisions for change,” he says, “I could have continued and made an enormous amount of money staying within that range, but it was not interesting to me.”

He expanded into the production side of the business with 1992's Medicine Man, in which he also starred, and the following year he formed Fountainbridge Films, which has produced most of his recent movies.

Although he tends now to shun the action-accented films in which he made his name, he would, he says, be tempted to return in another Indiana Jones film, having played Harrison Ford's father in the last installment, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

“It was hard work, with long days and different locations all over the place, but it was fun because of the calibre of the actors and the director [Steven Spielberg]. I would be happy to do it again.”

Of the present crop of films, he admires Gladiator and its star, Russell Crowe. “I thought it was terrific. Crowe gave a great performance, and the film was really moving on so many levels. I think one of the reasons it’s so good is that we have gone so far with big action movies that they’re all gadgetry; and now we’re suddenly back to the basics of good story and character.”

Connery’s trip to Los Angeles is remarkable in that it is the first time he can remember that he has visited the city and not headed for one of its private, secluded golf courses. Golf, which he used to play daily in Spain when he was not working, is losing its attraction for him. His game, he says, has taken a turn for the worse and he is thinking of giving it up.

“It’s not such an important thing to me any more,” he says. “I’m not having a good time at the moment on the golf course - you only have to ask my wife - and my interest is waning. I used to be obsessive about it, but now I’m thinking of easing back towards playing doubles tennis instead.”

The interview over, he courteously shakes hands and strides from the room, plainly anxious to return home to the Bahamas and to the prospect of tennis partners who refrain from asking questions.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-21