A biography for Sean Beanhasn’t been written yet.
“I am quite quiet: I don't feel as though I have to express myself with words too often. Maybe I should do more.”
“When I first finished 'Sharpe,' it was hard to get work because people only saw me as him.”
“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.”
“As an actor, you're in the hands of producers and directors. It's important to find out who you're working with.”
“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'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'm very good at keeping a secret.”
“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 left school when I was 16; then I worked for my father, who was a welder. And I was a welder for three years, you know, welder of fabrication, metal 'cause it was a big industrial town, Sheffield. It was much steel and coal and stuff like that.”
“Actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, they totally immerse themselves in their parts.”
“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.”
“My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, 'I want to be an actor.' They worried it was a waste of time.”
“Obviously I'm delighted I'm a grandfather, but I guess it takes a little while to digest. You start thinking, 'Oh, I'm half-way over the natural life span. So this is the last bit, and I'd better enjoy it.'”
“Jimmy McGovern - I love his writing, and I'm a big fan of him and Alan Clarke.”
“It's a good thing to be typecast, isn't it?”
“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.”
“Of course I believe in love despite four divorces. There is nobody who doesn't believe in love. But marriage - that fits some people but obviously not me.”
“You don't necessarily equate me with humor!”
“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.”
“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.”