April 26, 1999
Sean Connery young at heart
By LOUIS B. HOBSON
EDINBURGH -- Like beauty, age is in the eye of the beholder.

Behold a 69-year-old man romancing a 29-year-old woman.

At first, such a pairing seems to stretch the idea of a May/December romance to its limits until you consider that the man is Sean Connery and the woman is Catherine Zeta-Jones.

He has been considered one of sexiest men alive for almost three decades and she is no frail, gamin Hollywood starlet.

Their pairing in Entrapment, which opens Friday, is tricky, but it almost seems natural.

In this romantic heist film, Connery plays Mac MacDougal, the world's most famous art thief.

Zeta-Jones is Gin, an insurance investigator who sets out to end his amazing career.

Connery is not only the star but the film's producer and it was he who hand-picked Zeta-Jones to be his intellectual and romantic nemesis.

Mac and Gin are seasoned games players and they are playing complicated games with each other's minds and emotions.

Connery had already auditioned a half dozen actresses when he heard about Zeta-Jones' smouldering performance in The Mask of Zorro.

He flew her out to Rome to meet with him and after reading three short scenes and chatting with her for an hour, Connery knew he'd found his leading lady.

"I wanted to make Entrapment and I knew Catherine was right for the role. If I had had any reservations about our having the right screen presence, I would have had no reservations about simply producing the movie and getting someone else to star in it.

"I'll know when it's time for me to say no and to finally stand down," insists Connery.

Zeta-Jones admits that on her flight to Rome, she had a few reservations.

"I'd read the script. I knew the romance was an important part of the film.

"Any fears I might have had disappeared the moment I met Sean," she recalls.

"There was immediate chemistry and attraction between us. I figured if it worked for us in reality, it would also work on camera."

Connery agrees.

"It was pretty clear something was working for us from the moment we met," he says.

"The screenplay for the film quickly establishes that Mac is in his 60s and that Gin is of an indeterminate age, but certainly not in her 60s. Yet in spite of this age difference, a relationship develops."

In an early draft of the movie, Mac and Gin consummated their relationship almost immediately. Connery wanted none of this, so he brought in William Boyles, whose credits include the TV series China Beach and the film Apollo 13 to rework the original Ron Bass story.

Connery also fired director Antoine Fuqua, who'd come fresh off The Replacement Killers and wanted to create a hi-tech James Bond-style thriller.

"There was too much technological, sci-fi stuff. There was no real opportunity for a relationship to develop," Connery says.

"It was like the old Bond movies where the women were essentially props.

"I wanted a bit of romance, a bit of a caper movie and a really great twist to end it all."

After several trips to the drawing board, Connery got the writers to create a woman who, as he puts it, is Mac's "emotional, physical and intellectual equal. The character is a contemporary, modern woman just as Catherine is."

Jon Amiel, who Connery picked to direct Entrapment, says the star was adamant that the picture "be about sexuality but not sex. It's about romance, longing and confusion.

"Sean and Catherine are two of the greatest sex symbols of the day. You can't put them in the same movie without there being sparks and without people expecting there to be sparks."

As far as the romance is concerned, Amiel compares Entrapment to My Fair Lady.

"It's about a powerful emotional relationship that develops between an older man and the younger woman who he takes on as a protege."

Connery says that age disparity in real life and in films is "a matter of instinct and intuition.

"My instinct and intuition told me Catherine could make this work.... She has wit, style and a beauty that transcends age."