Sean Bean: ‘I’m used to being killed on screen’
Of all the roles you might expect to find Sean Bean playing, that of a Catholic priest is probably not high on the list. This, after all, is an actor best known for playing fighters and rebels, men of action who shoot first and ask questions later.
“I did struggle at first ,” admits Bean of his part as Father Michael Kerri gan in BBC One’s new drama, the Jimmy McGovern-scripted Broken, which follows the parish priest of a deprived community in the North West of England as he tries and, frequently fails, to alleviate his parishioners’ problems from debt problems to health issues to crises of faith.
“He listens a lot but he can only go so far as a priest in his position without over stepping the mark and doing something illegal. I guess I’m used to playing parts where the characters, if they do want to do something, then they just do it. Although by doing that they do usually end up getting killed… funnily enough.”
Dying on screen is very much Bean’s business. He’s done so more than almost any other actor, and some of those deaths (Boromir in Lord of the Rings, Ned Stark in Game of Thrones) are part of pop culture history, endlessly debated and celebrated in countless internet memes.
It’s an image he’s happy enough to embrace — even turning up on E4 comedy Wasted as a grumpy spirit guide prone to gruffly disparaging Game of Throne’s best-known-phrases (“I’m not saying ‘Winter is Coming’”).
“Oh, I’m actually very flattered by all that,” he says laughing. “Game of Thrones is brilliant […] It was so great to be in and then to have such a great death—I’ ve watched all the videos of people reacting to Ned’s death. They’re fantastic. Really funny.”
The 58-year-old actor is on particularly relaxed form today. Past interviews have hinted at a certain impatience and it was made clear today that all questions about his complicated personal life — he has married and divorced four times — are off limits.
Having encountered him before at a junket for Game of Thrones, I’m not sure I would have dared anyway: even in a room full of journalists from all over the world firing questions at him, he demonstrated an impressive ability to freeze out those he didn’t like, proving particularly adept at the withering eyebrow raise and ice-cold stare.
Today, however, he’s all easy Northern charm, smiles and thoughtful answers, clearly proud of his work on Broken and confident we will follow Father Michael on his journey over the next six weeks.
The role was a departure in more ways than one. Father Michael is a quiet man and a lonely one and Bean gives a beautifully restrained, interior performance, allowing us to slowly see why a man who wants so desperately to help others is unable to help himself.
“There is that sense of: here is a man who really listens to people and sym pa this es with their problems, the people in debt, those who are really struggling and he tries to help but in doing that he takes all their concerns on himself,” says Bean. “Then he goes home and he’s alone in his room and he can’t tell anyone what he knows. He has to bear the weight.”
Put like that Broken sounds incredibly depressing but, as with all McGovern series, the often-bleak storyline is leavened by a darkly funny script and some fantastic one-liners. Bean, who previously worked with the writer on The Accused, says he jumped at the chance to join forces again. “Jimmy’s writing is just fabulous. It demands that you really do apply yourself to it but once you get the rhythm and really throw yourself in there then it just becomes really natural.”
Like McGovern, Bean grew up Catholic—“although it seemed rather distant to me as a child. We’d go to church for christenings, baptisms, weddings and funerals but it was just a figure standing there talking” — but admits that it is a long time since the church played apart in his life .“Luckily we had an advisor, Father Denis, and when I got behind the scenes with him, as it were, I discovered how much more is involved, all the stuff he does within the community and how busy he is.”
Bean was interested, too, in the chance to play a priest who, while troubled by his faith, was not in any way a bad man. “He’s a social worker as much as a priest and I thought that was quite interesting to see on screen, a priest who might have his demons but who is still depicted in a fairly kind and optimistic light. We always see priests doing wrong on screen and they’re not all like that. It was kind of refreshing.”
That said actually getting up on the altar was “a bit scary […] just standing up there talking to the congregation, although it helped after I’d gone along to watch Father Denis.” He checks himself and laughs again. “I sat in the front row and watched him. I could almost do a full mass myself by the end.”
In the past Bean has spoken of his support for Jeremy Corbyn, telling the press last year that the Labour leader is “sticking up for the working-class man and it’s time we heard that voice again”. And he admits that part of what drew him to Broken was its no-holds-barred depiction of a community broken by debt, struggling to get by on zero-hours contracts and let down by the services that are supposed to assist them.
“It is overtly political and it has a conscience and deals with a lot of issues but it’s not grim,” he says. He breaks off and shakes his head. “Mind you it does sound grim when you talk about it and, yeah, you can just hear people saying, ‘oh, god, I’m not going to watch that.’ But I hope they do because the characters are so well-drawn and well-written and I also think it’s very important that these kind of lives are depicted on television.”
He sits forward, becoming increasingly animated .“The thing is, these are the issues that we’re facing now, many communities in northern cities in particular are struggling and that struggle needs to be broadcast into people’s living rooms so they see that these are big problems. And Broken does this without being too pontificating or making some kind of party political broadcast — it just highlights the issues that people have that are kind of being ignored.”
Does he see it as an accurate depiction then? “Absolutely, especially where I come from. I grew up in Sheffield near the Orgreave colliery and it’ s a wonderful place with wonderful people but a lot of communities are devastated. They’ve never recovered from the end of mining and the closing of the steelworks under That cher. They’re still paying the price now — there are areas where everything is shut down and desolate and there’s nowhere to turn. Broken reflects the kind of struggles people are going through and I think that’s an important thing to do.”
In a wide-ranging career that has taken in everything from an early spell at the Royal Shakespeare company through playing a James Bond villa in and cutting a swathe through the Napoleonic era as the gruff but dashing Sharpe to memorable roles on American network and cable TV and both heroes and villains in big budget blockbusters, he’s long been at the stage where he can pick and choose his projects. It’s clear then that this one in particular is a labour of love.
Sure, he enjoys the all-action moments of shows such as The Frankenstein Chronicles (he’s currently filming a second series in Belfast for ITV Encore “people keep asking me where they can watch it which is […] unfortunate and frustrating but anyway it’s still on Encore.”) but he clearly believes passionately that there should still be room on television for this kind of smaller, more heartfelt tale.
“It’s a dark series, yes, but there are moments of humour and there is hope,” he says. “A series like Boys from the Blackstuff captured an era and hopefully this will do the same. I’m not just saying this because I’m in it — I honestly think it’s very good indeed.”
I’m used to playing parts where the characters, if they do want to do something, then they just do it.” Sean Bean, actor