Sean Bean (born Shaun Mark Bean; 17 April 1959) is an English actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he made his professional debut in a production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983 at The Watermill Theatre.[1] Retaining his Yorkshire accent, he first found mainstream success for his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in the ITV series Sharpe, which originally ran from 1993 to 1997.
Bean made his film debut in the historical drama Caravaggio (1986) and received further attention for his roles in Stormy Monday (1988) and Patriot Games (1992). He played the main antagonist Alec Trevelyan in the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995) and had a supporting role in the action thriller Ronin (1998). Bean achieved international recognition for portraying Boromir in the fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003). Following the success of Lord of the Rings, Bean appeared in a variety of films, including in the science fiction Equilibrium (2002), the heist National Treasure (2004), Odysseus in the historical war epic Troy (2004), the mystery thriller Flightplan (2005), the action horror Black Death (2010), and the science fiction The Martian (2015).
Shaun Mark Bean[3] was born in the Handsworth suburb of Sheffield on 17 April 1959,[4] the son of Rita (née Tuckwood) and Brian K. Bean (born 1934).[5][6] He has a younger sister, Lorraine. His paternal grandfather, Harold Bean Jr. (1914–2001), served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War[7] and was a stud mill labourer who later became a pacifist.[6] His father owned a fabrication company that employed 50 people, including Bean's mother, who worked as a secretary. Despite becoming relatively wealthy, the family never moved away from the council estate as they preferred to remain close to friends and family.[8] As a child, Bean smashed a glass door during an argument, which left a piece of glass embedded in his leg that briefly impeded his walking, and left a large scar.[5] This prevented him from pursuing his ambition of playing football professionally.[9]
Bean first attended a local school, Handsworth Junior School, before going to Athelstan School until he was 12, when he went to study at Brook School.[10] In 1975, Bean left Brook Comprehensive School with O levels in Art and English.[11] After a job at a supermarket and another for the local council, he started work at his father's firm. Once a week, he attended Rotherham College of Arts and Technology to study welding.[12] While at college, he came upon an art class, and decided to pursue his interest in art. After attending courses at two other colleges, one for half a day and the other for less than a week, he returned to Rotherham College, where he enrolled in a drama course. After some college plays and one at Rotherham Civic Theatre, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), starting a seven-term course in January 1981.[5]
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bean became an established actor on British television.[18] In 1990, Bean starred in Jim Sheridan's adaptation of the John B. Keane play The Field. Also in 1990, his role as the journalist Anton in Windprints examined the difficult problems of apartheid in South Africa. He appeared in the BBC productions Clarissa (1991) (with Saskia Wickham and Lynsey Baxter) and Lady Chatterley (1993) (with Joely Richardson).[19] In 1996, he combined his love of football with his career to finally achieve his childhood dream of playing for Sheffield United, starring as Jimmy Muir in the film When Saturday Comes.[20] Although the film was not critically acclaimed, Bean received credit for a good performance.[21] In August 1997, Bean appeared in what became a famous Sky Sports commercial for the upcoming 1997–98 Premier League season.[22] His football-related work continued in 1998 when he narrated La Coupe de la Gloire, the official film of the 1998 FIFA World Cup held in France.[23]
Bean's critical successes in Caravaggio and Lady Chatterley contributed to his emerging image as a sex symbol, but he became most closely associated with the character of Richard Sharpe, the maverick Napoleonic Wars rifleman in the ITV television series Sharpe. The series was based on Bernard Cornwell's novels about the Peninsular War, and the fictional experiences of a band of soldiers in the famed 95th Rifles. Starting with Sharpe's Rifles, the series followed the fortunes and misfortunes of Richard Sharpe as he rose from the ranks as a Sergeant, promoted to Lieutenant in Portugal, to Lieutenant Colonel by the time of the Battle of Waterloo.
Bean was not the first actor to be chosen to play Sharpe. As Paul McGann was injured while playing football two days into filming, the producers initially tried to work around his injury, but it proved impossible and Bean replaced him. The series ran continuously from 1993 to 1997, with three episodes produced each year. It was filmed under challenging conditions, first in Ukraine and later in Portugal. After several years of rumours, more episodes were produced: Sharpe's Challenge (2006) and Sharpe's Peril (2008).[24] Both of these were released as two cinema-length 90-minute episodes per series.[25] With a role as enigmatic Lord Richard Fenton in the TV miniseries Scarlett, Bean made the transition to Hollywood feature films. His first notable Hollywood appearance was that of an Irish republicanterrorist in the 1992 film adaptation of Patriot Games. While filming his death scene, Harrison Ford hit him with a boat hook, giving him a permanent scar. Bean's rough-cut looks made him a patent choice for a villain, and his role in Patriot Games was the first of several villains that he would portray, all of whom die in gruesome ways.[26]
1995–2011: The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones
Bean's most prominent role was as Boromir in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. His major screen time occurs in the first instalment, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. He appears briefly in flashbacks in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as well as in a scene from the extended edition of The Two Towers. Before casting finished, rumours circulated that Jackson had considered Bean for the role of Aragorn, but neither Bean nor Jackson confirmed this in subsequent interviews. Bean's fear of flying in helicopters caused him difficulties in mountainous New Zealand, where the trilogy was filmed. After a particularly rough ride, he vowed not to fly to a location again; in one instance, he chose to take a ski lift into the mountains while wearing his full costume (complete with shield, armour, and sword) and then hike the final few miles.[29][30]
Other roles gave more scope for his acting abilities. In 1999's Extremely Dangerous, his character walked a fine line between villain and hero.[31] He became a repentant, poetry-reading Grammaton cleric who succumbs to his emotions in 2002's Equilibrium, a quirky alien cowboy in 2003's The Big Empty, and a sympathetic and cunning Odysseus in the 2004 film Troy. He appeared with other Hollywood stars in Moby's music video "We Are All Made of Stars" in February 2002.[32] In the same year, he returned to the stage in London performing in Macbeth.[33] Due to popular demand, the production ran until March 2003.[34] In 2005, Bean had sizeable roles in the films Flightplan and North Country.
Bean has done voice-over work, mostly in the British advertising industry.[35] He has featured in television adverts for O2, Morrisons and Barnardos as well as for Acuvue and the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States. He also does the voice-over for the National Blood Service's television and radio campaign. Bean has also filmed a TV ad for Yorkshire Tea, a United Kingdom brand of tea.[36] For the role playing video game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, he voiced Martin Septim.[37] Bean's distinctive voice has also been used in the intro and outro segments of the BBCFormula 1 racing coverage for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
Bean completed a one-hour pilot, Faceless, for US television. He has also appeared in Outlaw (2007), an independent British remake of the 1986 horror film The Hitcher; here he used an American accent again. In 2009, he appeared in the Red Riding trilogy as the malevolent John Dawson. He also appeared in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), playing the role of Zeus, the king of Mount Olympus and god of the sky, thunder, and lightning. Also that year, Bean starred in Cash, playing the lead role of Pyke Kubic, a dangerous man determined to recover his wealth in a bad economy. Cash explored the role money plays in today's hard economic times. Bean also played the villain's twin brother, Reese. Bean starred in the first season of Game of Thrones, HBO's adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin, playing the part of Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark.[38] Bean and Peter Dinklage were the two actors whose inclusion show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss considered necessary for the show to become a success, and for whose roles no other actors were considered. His portrayal won him critical praise; as The A.V. Club's reviewer put it, he "portrayed Ned as a man who knew he lived in the muck but hoped for better and assumed everyone else would come along for the ride."[39] HBO's promotional efforts focused on Bean as the show's leading man and best-known actor.[40][41]
2012–present: Further film and television roles
Bean at a press conference for Ridley Scott's The Martian, 2015 Toronto Film Festival
In 2012, Bean appeared in four films: Soldiers of Fortune; Cleanskin, in which he plays a secret service agent faced with the task of pursuing and eliminating a suicide bomber and his terrorist cell; Tarsem Singh's Snow White adaptation, Mirror Mirror; and the sequel Silent Hill: Revelation, in which he reprised his role as Christopher Da Silva.[42] Also that year, Bean co-starred in the ABC drama series Missing, and appeared as cross-dressing teacher Simon in the opening episode of the second season of UK television series Accused, a role which would earn him a Royal Television Society best actor award.[43][44]
Bean starred in the espionage television series Legends as Martin Odum, an FBI agent who takes on various fabricated identities to go undercover. The show was canceled after its second season. An intensive viral marketing campaign was centred on the hashtag #DontKillSeanBean, focusing on the various deaths of his past characters and promising his character in Legends would not suffer the same fate.[45] The campaign culminated with a Funny or Die exclusive video featuring Bean filming a scene for the show where he's become so accustomed to dying on screen that he expects his character to die a bizarrely gruesome death despite the simplicity of the scene.[46]
From 2015 to 2017, Bean starred in the ITV Encore drama series The Frankenstein Chronicles.[47] In that time, he also starred in multiple notable films including Jupiter Ascending, Pixels, and The Martian. In 2017, Bean starred in the BBC series Broken as the troubled priest Father Michael Kerrigan, which earned him a BAFTA award for Best Actor.[48] In 2019, Bean played a damaged veteran in the TV drama World on Fire, basing his interpretation on his late paternal grandfather.[49]
Bean at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival
Bean is often described as "down to earth" and has retained his Yorkshire accent.[19] He says that he does not mind being considered as a "bit of rough" by women.[57] He has developed a reputation as a loner, a label that he considers unfair.[19] He has described himself instead as quiet, and interviewers confirm that he is a "man of few words",[58] with one interviewer calling him "surprisingly shy".[59] He admits that he can be a workaholic; he reads books or listens to music in his spare time, and is a skilled pianist. He is also a keen gardener, welder, and sketcher.[60] Popular in his home county, a 2018 poll for Yorkshire Day saw Bean ranked the second greatest Yorkshireman ever behind Monty Python comedian, and fellow Sheffielder, Michael Palin.[61]
Acting style
Despite being professionally trained, Bean adopted an instinctive style of acting that some say makes him especially well-suited to portraying his characters' depths.[62] He has said that the most difficult part is at the start of filming when trying to understand the character.[63] After achieving this, he can snap in and out of character instantly. This ability to go from the quiet man on set to the warrior Boromir "amazed" Sean Astin during filming of The Fellowship of the Ring.[64] Other fans include directors Mike Figgis and Wolfgang Petersen, who described working with Bean as a "beautiful thing".[62]
Deaths of characters
For many years, Bean's characters died on screen, a phenomenon that gained notoriety on the internet and in The Lord of The Rings, Game of Thrones and James Bond fandoms and had become an Internet meme.[26] Bean's favourite on-screen death is Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring: "I thought his death was very heroic and triumphant and poignant. It had pathos."[65] In September 2019, Bean revealed that he had begun turning down roles that would have his character killed because his screen death had become predictable.[66][67]
Personal life
Bean has been married five times and divorced four times. He married his secondary school sweetheart Debra James on 11 April 1981, and they were divorced in 1988. He met actress Melanie Hill at RADA, and they were married on 27 February 1990. Their first daughter was born in October 1987, and their second was born in September 1991. Their marriage ended in divorce in August 1997. During the filming of Sharpe, Bean met actress Abigail Cruttenden, and they were married on 22 November 1997. Their daughter was born in November 1998. They were divorced in July 2000. In addition to his three children, Bean has four grandchildren.[68]
Bean began dating actress Georgina Sutcliffe in 2006. After cancelling their planned January 2008 wedding on the eve of the ceremony for "personal reasons", he married Sutcliffe at the Marylebone Town Hall in London on 19 February 2008.[69] During allegations that Bean physically abused Sutcliffe in 2009,[59] domestic disturbances resulted in the police being called to their home in Belsize Park on three occasions. Bean and Sutcliffe's separation was announced on 6 August 2010,[70] and a decree nisi was granted on 21 December 2010.[71] He married Ashley Moore on 30 June 2017.[72]
Bean has been a fan of Sheffield United (the "Blades") since he was eight years old, and has a tattoo on his left shoulder that reads "100% Blade".[73][74] He opened their Hall of Fame in 2001 and, after making a six-figure contribution to the club's finances, was on their board of directors between 2002 and 2007 to help raise the profile of the club. He stepped down in 2007 to "go back to being an ordinary supporter" where he feels at home.[75] During his time there, he had a dispute with Neil Warnock, former manager of Sheffield United, after Warnock claimed that Bean stormed into his office and shouted at him in front of his wife and daughter when the club had just been relegated from the Premier League. Bean denies it, calling Warnock "bitter" and "hypocritical".[76] He wrote the foreword and helped to promote a book of anecdotes called Sheffield United: The Biography.[77] He also follows Yorkshire County Cricket Club.[78]
Bean has a tattoo of the number nine on his shoulder, written using Tengwar, in reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings films and the fact that his character was one of the original nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring. Seven of the other actors of "The Fellowship" (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, and Viggo Mortensen) have the same tattoo, while John Rhys-Davies, whose character was also one of the original nine companions, arranged for his stunt double to get the tattoo instead.[79][80]
In his home city of Sheffield, he has received several honours and acclaims, including an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University in 1997 and a Doctor of Letters in English Literature from the University of Sheffield in July 2007.[94][95] He was selected as one of the inaugural members of Sheffield Legends (the Sheffield equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame) and a plaque in his honour has been placed in front of Sheffield Town Hall.[96] Bean commented: "I did get a doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University about 11 or 12 years ago so now I'm a double doctor. But this was wonderful, especially from my home city."[94][95]
^Trowbridge, Simon. The Company: A Biographical Dictionary of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Oxford: Editions Albert Creed (2010) ISBN978-0-9559830-2-3
^ abcHockney, Karen (22 April 2006). "Sharpe still cuts it". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 4 September 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2017.(subscription required)
^Mulkerrins, Jane (18 April 2011). "Sean Bean on Game of Thrones". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 23 April 2011. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
^Kent, Winona (2001). "The Interview". The Compleat Sean Bean. Vancouver, BC. Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
^ abRaphael, Amy (17 February 2009). "Sean Bean's Brutal Role in Red Riding". The Times. London.
Trowbridge, Simon (2010). The Company: A Biographical Dictionary of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Oxford: Editions Albert Creed. ISBN978-0-9559830-2-3.
.jpg)
