You remember him as Ned Stark but now he’s a Legend
Sean Bean back for a second season of Bravo series but fans can’t forget his role in Game of Thrones
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for the Season 5 Game of Thrones finale and the Season 1 Legends finale. Years after playing family patriarch Ned Stark in Season 1 of Game of Thrones, Sean Bean still gets approached by strangers mourning the loss of the noble character in the HBO fantasy series.
“Yes, it seems that people aren’t happy about it still. They ask me why I died and I apologize. I tell them that I really didn’t want to die, it’s the writers,” he laughs.
Bean has not been idle since the death of his character. He is one of the stars, along with Matt Damon, of the Ridley Scott-directed summer blockbuster The Martian. And he returns as deep undercover opera- tive Martin Odum in Season 2 of TV drama Legends on Bravo, which debuts Wednesday at 9 p.m.
In person, Bean is so soft-spoken it’s hard to associate him with some of the outsized characters he plays. You strain to hear his words. But the fashionably cut suit cannot hide that craggy Ned Stark visage, the lines on his face forever foreshadowing some penultimate Greek tragedy to come.
No matter how many roles he plays, the defining one seems to be of the beheaded Stark, whose family has gone on to victory and mostly tragedy in subsequent seasons. His bastard son, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), meanwhile, was the most recent shocking death in the family at the end of Season 5.
But even Bean is unconvinced that his TV son could really be dead.
“I doubt they’ve really killed him off. I think they could possibly resurrect him in some form or other,” Bean said.
If his GOTcharacter were still alive, Bean would make sure to tell his ill-fated offspring, “Be careful who you trust. Be strong. But overall, be yourself,” he said.
Being yourself is not the strong suit of Bean’s latest character, an undercover agent working for the FBI’s Division of Covert Operations.
The series was developed by Homeland producer Howard Gordon and based on the book Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation by Robert Littell. The “legend” moniker refers to the fictional background created by agents as they go undercover. It’s a role, that as an actor, Bean has been preparing for most of his working life.
“There is a very close similarity between acting and being in Legends,” says Bean.
“He lives those characters though, so he’s taking it a step further. I can go home.”
Season 1 had Bean playing every- thing from a journalist to an arms dealer, although co-star Ali Larter may have had the heavier load, moving from banker to stripper in one episode.
The TNT series also stars Morris Chestnut and Amber Valletta. Valletta, who plays Odum’s wife, was shot in the cliffhanger Season1finale.
Season 2 picks up with Odum struggling to cope with the shooting while on the run from his own operatives.
“This time it’s much darker, much grittier. There is lots of intrigue, very John le Carré,” says Bean.
“Last year we were putting down roots and trying to find a structure. This is a little more fleshed out and vibrant.”
The new season is set in Europe. And Bean says it feels like a completely different production.
“It’s set in Prague; you have Chechen rebels, the Russian mafia, the CIA all intersecting. It’s also something of a retrospective, taking you back 15 years to explain why he is the person he is.”
Given that the producers are hoping for more seasons to come, it’s probably a lock to expect that Bean will survive Season 2.
This, despite the fact he is famous for being killed in dramatic fashion.