Sean Bean Quotations

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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'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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

That's the thing about Brits they have the grounding in the classics and theatre, ... That's why we're good. We go to America and people respect that because we've been through the theatre, we've made discoveries and also made our mistakes there, and that's a wonderful environment to be in. By the time you start to make television and films you've got some experience behind you, an anchor. All those things, when you put them together, give you a certain amount of confidence and a certain belief in yourself, and the ability to adapt and change to some of the different roles you play. You need to be a good actor to play a villain, and we're always getting cast as villains because we play them well.

I've always admired the way she approaches her work. She seems to underplay things in such a believable way, and she's also a wonderful person, very realistic, down to earth and genuine, and I thought she played the part beautifully,

There was good chemistry between us and I think we formed a good partnership together, with her being the gutsy, working woman and me being the sort of guy who stays at home mending watches and evolving into another level of man, as it were.

They're always intense. I think everything is quite intense and that's the way it should be on things...

I'm usually catching up on things I should have been doing while I was filming - a pile of mail and bills. I like reading. I like watching a lot of sports on TV - football, boxing. I like cricket a lot. I try to get down to Lords to watch Yorkshire if they're playing down there.

I'm the captain of one of these giant new planes, and 90 per cent of it takes place on board,

I always prefer to work intensively on something and then move on to something else. I prefer not to get stuck in something that takes five or six years of my life.

Usually you tend to glean much more information about your character from what other people say about you, rather than how it's described in the books.

The idea is that Jodie Foster is with her child and she's going back to New York from Germany with her husband's body. She loses her child on a plane, and you think, 'How can that happen?' There's no record of her having brought a child onto the plane, and the captain is left wondering about whether she's telling the truth. You never really know if she's telling the truth or not.

I like to keep myself in shape. I run and do weights when I go to the gym.

It 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.

To be honest, you have to do a big Hollywood film to get enough money to do a good independent film!

You've only got to walk into a pub or a café or anything and you'll find people talking about topics they're very unhappy with. You feel as though things are being eroded and people don't know where they belong anymore.

Oblivion is something unique, an entertainment experience unlike anything I had seen before. I decided this was a project I really wanted to work on creatively, and I hope fans of the game enjoy the results.

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 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.

Every actor wants to find a piece of work that's innovative and powerful and moving.