Sean Bean

My family thought the fascination with acting was just another fad.

I always get nervous before a scene.

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 seem to be quite drawn to the medieval, magical fantasies, as it were.

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.

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

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

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

You don't necessarily equate me with humor!

I go to see my kids in school plays.

Everyone was very deeply involved in the world of "The Lord of the Rings". From the wardrobe department to lighting, all were fascinated with the story. This is something that does not happen usually.

Everyone was very deeply involved in the world of 'The Lord of the Rings'. From the wardrobe department to lighting, all were fascinated with the story. This is something that does not happen usually.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

I guess when we're young, we all have that fascination with flying.

Sometimes all you need is a big leap of faith.

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

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 everybody's got different methods of working which suit the particular individual. Mine is to sort of play the part, and give 100%, to concentrate and focus on it while I'm actually working, but then leave it behind until the next day.

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.

I never try and play a bad guy to be bad and to be brutal and to be nasty and vicious, because I think you're going to be very cliche there. You know, you've got to find the truth in that character and what he believes in. It just happens that, you know, he's wrong.

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

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 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.

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.

Anyone who says they are a hard man - they aren't.

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.

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

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.'

I don't think I've ever had a real desire to pick out any particular role - I just see what comes up.

I love doing just nothing in my free time.

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.

I'd like to act as a fair, easy-going, kind man at some point.

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.

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.

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

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.

Football is a passionate game. It excites us.

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.

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.

I think the amount of production value that was put into 'Game of Thrones' was incredible, and it's unlike anything I've seen on any other production, including 'The Lord of the Rings.'

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 like playing guys with swords and the horses and stuff like that.

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.

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

There are so many stories to be told, by so many good writers.

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

It's strange coming back to Northern Ireland, but it feels like a home away from home.

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

For some reason, the parts I play, like Boromir or Ned Stark, have a life online long afterwards. I keep seeing - what do you call them - memes?

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.

I love to be with my kid in Yorkshire. I love it there.

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.

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

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'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 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.

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.

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.

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

Working in a garden calms me down.

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.

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.'

When I was younger, I used to watch all the black-and-white 'Dracula's and 'Frankenstein's.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I used to play a lot of villains. You have to break out of it, and I did.

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

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