Pierce Brosnan Finds Comfort through Prayer, Catholic Faith after Wife, Daughter's Deaths

Jul 11, 2014 07:38 PM EDT

Pierce Brosnan
Brosnan is best for his role in the ''James Bond'' series. (Photo: IMDB)

Pierce Brosnan is best known for his role in the "James Bond" series as a debonair, confident agent.

However, the 61 year old actor revealed that he has experienced numerous tragedies in his life, including losing both his first wife and adopted daughter to ovarian cancer. Yet despite these devastating events, Brosnan says his faith in God carries him through even the toughest of times

"I would say faith, being Irish, being Catholic, it's ingrained in my DNA," Brosnan responded to a question about what helped him through his dark days, according to NY Daily News on Monday.

Brosnan's comments were made at the New York premiere of his new film, "A Long Way Down," where he plays a depressed television personality contemplating suicide-a role the actor finds "relatable."

Two years ago, Brosnan's 41-year-old daughter Charlotte Emily died from ovarian cancer several years after his first wife, Cassandra Harris.

"She has made me the man I am, the actor I am, the father I am," Brosnan said about his former wife. "She's forever embedded in every fiber of my being. She's there with me every day. I was so blessed to have met someone like that."

Brosnan also says he also paints and sketches to cope with difficult events, telling the NY Daily News, "I paint landscapes, figuratives. I painted all my life. In fact, I started as a commercial artist."

However, the actor says he finds prayer the most comforting way to deal with tragedy.

"[Prayer] helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer and with a child who had fallen on tough times. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor and to be a man," Brosnan told RTE.ie in March 2011.

"It always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith."

He added: "God has been good to me. My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer ... I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith."

"A Long Way Down," directed by Pascal Chaumeil, opens to a limited release in the U.S. on July 11.