Actor Pierce Brosnan revealed that his Christian faith is what brought him through the devastating losses of his wife and daughter.
Brosnan made the revelation last week at the New York premiere of his film "A Long Way Down." In the movie, Brosnan plays a depressed, suicidal, television personality who forms a dysfunctional bond with other suicidal persons.
The 61-year-old actor has gone through dark periods himself, suffering the loss of his first wife, actress Cassandra Harris, and daughter, Charlotte Brosnan. Harris died in 1991 from ovarian cancer, and Charlotte died in June 2013 from the same disease. Cassandra's mother also died from ovarian cancer.
After Harris' passing at the age of 41, Brosnan discussed what it was like watching two of his loved ones lose their fight with cancer.
"I went through it all, very publicly," he told the Mirror. "Such things draw a mark across your heart and it's always a part of your life.
"To watch someone you love have their life eaten away – bit by bit, by this insidious and horrid disease – becomes an indelible part of your psyche."
Both of Cassandra's children, Charlotte and Christopher, were adopted by Brosnan after their father's death in 1986, and given Brosnan's surname. Brosnan and Harris had one child together, Sean, in 1983.
The former James Bond married Harris in 1977, and she was diagnosed with cancer in 1987. He has described her passing, at the age of 43, as a crushing blow.
"It was and is a terrible loss," he told Cigar Aficianado, six years after her death.
"And I see it reflected, from time to time, in my children. How do you carry on afterwards? Slowly. Very, very, very slowly. It hurts. And you have to sit and endure it. There's nothing else to do; it won't go away."
At the premiere of "A Long Way Down," Brosnan credited the Lord for seeing him through those trying times.
"I would say faith, being Irish, being Catholic, it's ingrained in my DNA," he told the New York Daily News.
Brosnan's late daughter Charlotte is survived by her husband, Alex, and two children, Isabella, 16, and Lucas, 9.
Brosnan married former television personality Keely Shaye Smith in 2001. They have two sons together: Dylan, 17, and Paris, 13.
"A Long Way Down" appears in theaters nationwide on July 11.
