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Connery had decided to mix business with, well, more business with the release of the big-budget high-concept caper co-starring Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The weekend that saw him give 60-odd interviews to promote the film, opening in Toronto on Friday, also saw him kick off his campaign for Scotland's independence from England.
Connery, who once worked in this city as a milkman, is the celebrity spokesman for the independence-minded Scottish National Party. And the party needs his help bigtime, since it's trailing the Labour Party by 20 points heading into the Scottish Parliamentary election May 6.
The erstwhile James Bond brings to the campaign his image as Super-Scot and plans for a $50-million movie studio to be constructed in Edinburgh with money from Sony Pictures. But Connery is taking his lumps from the local press, which have called him "the Member for the Bahamas" (where he lives to avoid paying U.K. taxes).
A 60 Minutes crew followed him for the story, while outside his hotel, in the shadow of storied Edinburgh Castle, herds of paparazzi prowled constantly. Inside -- as the local press gleefully notes -- the champion of ordinary Scots was ensconced in a $7,000 a night suite.
"I have to say all the press in Scotland since I've come back has been appalling. The level of character assassination has been disgusting," grumps Connery, happy to be talking to a member of the press who isn't questioning the quality of his tartan blood. Indeed, the biggest issue with the North American movie press seems to be the age gap between the 69-year-old Connery and his 29-year-old leading lady.
In Entrapment, Connery plays Robert MacDougall "the world's greatest art thief," who hooks up with a younger and more agile criminal named Gin Baker (Zeta-Jones) to steal a priceless Chinese mask, and then to engineer a billion dollar bank fraud via computers at the stroke of midnight 2000 in Malaysia. Their increasingly close relationship throughout is complicated by the fact that she's employed by a major insurance firm and may be setting him up.
Originally to be directed by Antoine Fuqua (The Replacement Killers), star/producer Connery fired him when the movie was shaping up as a wall-to-wall action picture. New director Jon Amiel (Sommersby) slowed things down and concentrated on the love story.
"If I had any instinct at my age that there was something wrong to be caught by Catherine Zeta-Jones then I wouldn't have done the film," Connery says. "People are always saying about other people 'How is she with him or how is it he's with her,' and well, it's none of their business."
Another reason for the change in tone was that Fuqua's version seemed too evocative of Bond. "It was very flamboyant, with a lot of heists and complicated stuff that eventually I thought would be tiresome to sustain."
As it is, the movie remains Bondian in scope, with glossy location filming in Malaysia, London and Scotland's Isle of Mull (where the keeper of Castle Duart, ancestral home of the Clan Maclean, was more than happy to lend the place to Connery, whose own mother's maiden name was MacLean).
The filming hints at what Connery would like to see a lot more of, if his plan for Hollywood Highlands comes to fruition under a sympathetic government (although to be accurate it should be noted Edinburgh is in the Lowlands).
The studio would compete and co-operate with England's two major studios, Pinewood (of James Bond fame) and Shepperton (Four Weddings And A Funeral).
"There's a terrific history and a great tradition of Scottish actors, directors, producers, writers, artisans, special effects people, second to none," Connery says. "But it's not a genuine industry without support. A new parliament would be marvelous timing to change that."
Once a campaigner, always a campaigner.