Sean Bean Quotes

Where I come from, all of us wanted to be footballers. We played all the time; that's all we did at school or wherever until it went dark and you couldn't see the ball.

As an actor, you're in the hands of producers and directors. It's important to find out who you're working with.

In theatre, once you've got the character and you've got things together, you can relax into it. Film has a different feel - you don't get that through line of not stopping. Theatre is like a snowball gathering momentum and getting bigger, whereas in film, it's a bit stop and start - but you do tend to adjust to that quite easily.

I think there's a great deal of information you can convey with looks or silence.

It took a while to adapt to life in London, but six months into my course at RADA, I felt very at home.

I love creating things, especially out of metal. There's something truly satisfying about shaping a piece of metal and seeing the impurities peeling away as you weld it into your chosen design.

It's important to enjoy who you are and to appreciate things around you.

Lord of the Rings was something I always wanted to do. I read the book when I was about 25, and I was always hoping if it was ever made into a feature film that I would be involved in some way. And then I finally got it, and I was over the moon. It was fantastic news.

Sometimes all you need is a big leap of faith.

Listen to people and treat people as you find them. There's an inherent goodness in most people. Don't pre-judge people - that was me Mam's advice anyway.

My first professional role was in 'Romeo and Juliet,' and I played Tybalt, who was Romeo's enemy, in a small production of that in the U.K.

I did a film called 'Patriot Games' with Harrison Ford, and we actually shot three different versions of my death. And they settled on the third.

I'd like to do a cowboy film. I suppose I've come close to it on occasion, but not really to a classic cowboy film.

I worked with John Hurt a couple of times and learned a lot from him.

I always like to do something different, something unusual, stray off the path a bit.

I don't like broad swords. They're not much fun. A broad sword is just a big chunk of steel, and there's not much finesse in it, not much skill, I don't think anyway.

I saw 'The Exorcist' at the cinema when I was quite young, maybe 14. When I went back home, my mum and dad weren't in, so I had to wait for them on the main road. I were too scared to enter the house.

When I first finished 'Sharpe,' it was hard to get work because people only saw me as him.

I'm proud of Lord of the Rings. I think it's a once in a lifetime role, and a once in a lifetime film. It was made with so much care and passion and meticulous detail and everybody was so behind it.

The thought of being in space, and kind of enclosed, I find would be very claustrophobic. I think I would panic in that situation.

Actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, they totally immerse themselves in their parts.

Football is a passionate game. It excites us.

At art college, I started to do music and then painting and drawing - and that would have been my ideal life, to be an artist and be paid for it, to be able to create stuff. I realized it was difficult, but I don't know if I had the application for it.

When I first started shooting 'Sharpe,' back in the early 1990s, I'd kiss my two elder daughters goodbye at the end of August - Evie wasn't even born then - and I wouldn't see them again until Christmas. That was tough. They were hard times.

I'd been trying for a while to get parts that weren't just the English bad guy, so it was quite refreshing to be playing someone who was a compassionate, decent guy.

I love doing just nothing in my free time.

Tolkien was quite a religious man, and so is George R.R. Martin. They kind of have this epic quality about them when they write the material.

I go to see my kids in school plays.

I don't believe you just create a character out of thin air, there's always something of yourself you bring.

It's a good thing to be typecast, isn't it?

I had no intention of being an actor. I was quite good at it. I was pretty capable at other things but never any good at anything.

If you have a very good concept of your character, you can snap into it.

I'm interested in why people talk like they do. Like Boston Irish. It's so laid back. Why is that?

Sharpe is my favorite role of all that I've played. He's a very complex character. He knows that he's a good soldier, but he will always have to fight the prejudice of aristocratic officers because of his rough working-class upbringing. On the battlefield, he's full of confidence - but off it, he is unsure, a bit shy and ill at ease.

My days of being an absentee dad are well and truly over.

George Martin looks like Santa Claus, but he's got a wonderfully disturbed mind.

I used to love wildlife as a kid and being outside in the garden and the woods and the field and that stuff.

I think Daniel Craig is brilliant as Bond. I remember at the beginning, they were all saying, 'Oh, he won't work,' and I thought, 'Yeah, you watch.'

I wouldn't say I'm a Method actor, but I do try to focus very deeply on what character I'm playing, and everything else goes out the window. I forget about everything. I try to get everything else out of my head.

There's a wealth of literature out there which, hopefully, will be, you know, exploded in the future, and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling, and sort of legendary characters.

I think we have a perception of transvestites all being the same, as one block. It's not one mass or tribe. Everybody's got a different story.

Lord of the Rings was just so much enjoyment. It was over about the space of a year that I was filming. It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done, so emotional.

You don't necessarily equate me with humor!

I think that you always have something left, that you take something of the character with you.

The media portrayal of women is always angled towards looking thinner and skinnier and ... that's not good.

A common misperception of me is ... that I am a tough, rough northerner, which I suppose I am really. But I'm pretty mild-mannered most of the time. It's the parts that you play I guess. I don't mind it. I'm not a tough guy. I'd like to act as a fair, easy-going, kind man at some point.

It would probably surprise people to know that I'm interested in wildlife. I read a lot of poetry, too.

You can run out of energy if you take on a lot of stuff.

There's only so long you can play the silent type standing in the background. 'GoldenEye' was good for that. I was the villain: James Bond was doing all the heavy lifting. I liked that.

I've been into lots of auditions, and I'm sure I've lost a lot of jobs through that because I'm pretty dreadful at reading.

I don't do much on social media. I don't really want people knowing about my life.

It's a good thing about George R.R. Martin: He's prepared to kill off the main guys. You don't get the feeling that the good guy is going to last forever, like James Bond.

I like Daniel Craig. I worked with him on 'Sharpe,' one of the very early ones, maybe the second one we did - 'Sharpe's Revenge?' A long, long time ago, and he was good in that then.

Jimmy McGovern - I love his writing, and I'm a big fan of him and Alan Clarke.

You only have to pick up a paper to see the sort of scams and injustices that are out there. There's a sense that people don't belong and just aren't very happy. They're outraged, in fact, and they're being shafted left, right and centre.

I bought a Jaguar when I was 28. I'd always wanted one. I had it for years, then my friend had it, then my dad had it. It was a good workhorse.

I've been accused of being a bit too keen on my football, not least by my three ex-wives.

I put quite a few trees in last autumn. A lot of silver birch and a couple of native trees - just generally doing gardening, putting plants in and hedges in. It takes quite a lot of time and I love it.

I always get nervous before a scene.

If you're going to support a football team, do it 100 per cent.

I've been fortunate enough to travel the world because of my career, but the downside has been spending long spells apart from my daughters.

I spend a fair chunk of time in Los Angeles, and after about ten days of warmth and unbroken clear skies, you start to yearn for a bit of good old British gloom and rain!

I'm very good at keeping a secret.

There's something quite satisfying, quite reassuring about seeing a man having to survive.

I sort of leave the character at the end of the day. I don't carry anything around with me - no excess baggage or unnecessary thoughts. I think it's too exhausting to do that. To put things into perspective - your work is your work, and your leisure time is something else.

The stigma of movie actors doing television is gone now.

006 was such an interesting character and the film really explored his friendship with Bond and how it all went wrong, so it was a very personal journey for both characters.

It is great filming in London. It's difficult, but it looks good. It has its own identity.

I miss a lot about England when I'm working away, even the slate grey skies.

I'm still Sean that me mates went to school with, not Sean the film star. And that's the way I prefer to be.

I have gotten a couple of letters meant for Mr. Bean aka Rowan Atkinson. These letters would say things like, 'You're so funny, you make me laugh, with your big rubbery face,' and I would say, 'You can't mean me!'

I go to see my kids in school plays, ... I watched Lorna in a concert at the Westminster College of Music the other day and it was amazing. I felt very proud and surprised. I don't know why I was surprised, because I've known her for 17 years, but I've never seen her do anything like that in front of an audience. It's brave, it's uplifting.

You can't follow another actor's performance. You can't be Robert DeNiro, because you're not Robert DeNiro, and, you know, he is.

I sometimes find that playing the bad guy, or villains, or psychopaths tend to be much more psychologically rewarding. And you can really push it, you can push the limits, and get away with it.