It’s hard to say what prompted the film producers back then to cast an almost unknown Scotsman – who had previously made his name as a coffin polisher, a nude model and a bodybuilder.
Whatever the reason, with seven 007 adventures, Sean Connery established a genre of his own and came to embody a new, laid-back masculinity characterised by a slightly brutal charm and subtle irony. By the nineties, Connery had achieved everything professionally and tried his hand at many things. Only his role as a secret agent did he never quite shake off. “What on earth am I supposed to do?” he quipped when asked about his role yet again. “I can’t go round all the time with a sign saying: ‘I’ve performed the classics in the theatre and read Ibsen, Pirandello, Shakespeare and even Proust!’”