Pierce Brosnan says acting is his 'life force'

— -- Pierce Brosnan will arguably go down in history as one of the best James Bonds of all time. That charm, the sex appeal and his tough-as-nails approach is what won fans over. Brosnan's still got it -- and he’s bringing it to his new AMC series, "The Son."

Brosnan stopped by ABC News' "Popcorn with Peter Travers" to talk about why he's returned to star in a TV series after a near 30-year break.

"I had been actively looking in the last four years because of the work that’s happening on TV," Brosnan said. "'Game of Thrones,' 'House of Cards' -- you name it. It’s fertile ground. It’s very robust and muscular. And I wanted something if it did connect, a little annuity, something to go back to each year and carry on. But you can go off and make your own movies and have a series at the same time."

He talked about his different occupations, but said being an actor is at the top.

"Acting for me is my life force," Brosnan continued. "I don’t know what else to do with this time in my life except paint, which I do now on a regular basis and have done for many years. And that’s running concurrent with this career of being an actor."

It was time to return to his primary passion in a meaningful way, he said.

"Work begets work and I’m at a point now where it’s changing," Brosnan continued. "And consequently you play someone like Eli and hopefully you can bring your gravitas of your 63 years of life to the performance in some nuanced way."

In the series, Brosnan plays the role of Colonel Eli McCullough.

"There’s a duality of the man in the sense that he was captured and his family annihilated by the Comanche who ruled the plains back then in the 1800s," Brosnan explained. "So the pioneers of the day who went into these lands really did go into uncharted territory."

"He’s a man born of violence. He’s a man that has been brutalized and fractured by the trauma of his life," Brosnan added. "And he knows that he has to control the violence himself. And he’s going to be the first one to throw the punch and he’ll probably be the last man standing."

Watch the full interview above with Pierce Brosnan and Peter Travers to see Brosnan talk about the old James Bond vs the new Bond.