It's been eight years since Pierce Brosnan last played James Bond, but the actor still sometimes feels he's living in the shadow of the iconic spy.

In a story in Thursday's paper, Brosnan, 56, acknowledged that in the public's eye, he's still "very connected to the image and history of Bond."

"It just lives with you. It permeates your life," said the actor last week in an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel. "And you know that going in, but the reality of it -- the overcoat is really large, and can be quite heavy at times. So you have to break the shackles of that."

Brosnan has certainly thrown his effort into trying to diversify: by the end of the spring, he will have appeared in five radically different films.

His most recent project, "The Greatest," on which he also served as a producer, opens Friday and tells the story of a father grappling with the death of his son. 

Even the star of that film, Carey Mulligan, said she initially identified with Brosnan as Bond.

“He is my generation’s James Bond,” said the actress. “I played the video game of him with my brother on Nintendo 64.”

But "The Greatest" is a far cry from an action thriller. It shares in the serious tone of March's "Remember Me," in which he was embattled in a different kind of father-son relationship with teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson. There has also been Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," in which Brosnan played an emotionally distant former prime minister, as well as his less dramatic turn as a bearded centaur in "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." Later this month, he'll serve as the narrator on the environmental documentary "Oceans."

Those eager to see award-season fixture Carey Mulligan on the big screen (but without the blond haircut) will have to wait a little longer. Mulligan's next film, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" -- in which she stars opposite her rumored real-life boyfriend Shia LaBeouf -- has been pushed by Fox from its initial April 23 release date to Sept. 24. The date change takes it off a weekend that brings the  comic book adventure "The Losers" and the romantic comedy "The Back-Up Plan" and moves it to a weekend with period Roman adventure "The Eagle of the Ninth" and romantic comedy "You Again."

Variety, which originally reported the story, attributed the date change in part to the film's bid to enter the  Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 12-23.

A studio spokesperson declined to discuss the reasons behind the date change, but did confirm that the film had been "submitted" to Cannes and is "under consideration."

If the film is accepted, it won't be LaBeouf's first journey to the French Riviera -- back in 2008, he was at the festival to promote the world premiere of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Oliver Stone's sequel, which follows the classic 1987 original, has Michael Douglas reprising his Oscar-winning role as greedy Wall Street executive Gordon Gekko. After emerging from a long stint behind bars, he's eager to return to his old ways while trying to reconnect with his daughter (Mulligan) and her fiance (LaBeouf), whom he befriends.

--Amy Kaufman

Photo: Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan star in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Credit: Twentieth Century Fox.

Until Tuesday morning, Sandra Bullock had never been nominated for an Oscar. Now, she and Jeff Bridges -- who got his first Oscar nod 38 years ago -- are in the same club: Both could be considered front-runners for their respective roles in "The Blind Side" and "Crazy Heart."

And although Bullock and Bridges are both veterans, the acting Oscar nominations include some  newcomers in Carey Mulligan, who plays a British teenager in "An Education," and Jeremy Renner, who portrays an expert bomb defuser in "The Hurt Locker."

Watch the video for Times film critic Kenneth Turan and writer John Horn, on the scene at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

-- Scott Sandell

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Ever since it was announced that Oliver Stone was finally ready to tackle a sequel to the classic 1987 film "Wall Street," film fans have questioned how the director will handle a new and arguably more challenging economic climate. While a newly released trailer for "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps" doesn't give much away, it does drop us right back into the fast-paced, "Greed is good" world of executive Gordon Gekko.

As seen in the trailer, Michael Douglas' character -- reprising the role that scored him an Oscar -- emerges  from a long stint behind bars. He's eager to return to his old ways, but the trailer makes clear that it's not going to be easy for Gekko to immediately get back into the swing of things: As he exits jail, he's handed his clunky old mobile phone and there's no limo ready to pick him up.

Other than flashy aerial shots of New York City, we don't get to see much of the film's other players: Gekko's daughter (Carey Mulligan), whom he's trying to reconnect with, and her fiance (Shia LaBeouf), whom he befriends. We see the least of Mulligan, who is only shown in a flimsy oversized boyfriend shirt, typing away at a laptop in her swanky apartment. LaBeouf, who plays a character named Jacob, is shown dressed in expensive-looking tailored suits, riding through the city streets on a motorcycle or flying above them in a helicopter. We get the sense LaBeouf''s character will attempt to serve as some type of moral compass for Gekko, or at least a worthy adversary: "No matter how much money you make, Mr. Gekko, you'll never be rich," he tells his soon-to-be father-in-law in the trailer.

By comparison, it's pretty amusing to watch the trailer for the original 1987 film starring Charlie Sheen, who makes a cameo in the new film. (Check out the old school cellphones and computers!)

So, do you think the new film will be able to live up to the original? Is Shia LaBeouf as charming a leading man as Charlie Sheen was over two decades ago? Will a film about the greed on Wall Street prove to be timely or didactic? Weigh in in our poll below.

-- Amy Kaufman