Sean Mark Bean (b 17 April 1959) is an English film and stage actor. Bean has also acted in a number of television productions as well as performing voice work for computer games and television adverts. As an actor, he adopted the Irish/Scottish spelling “Sean” of his first name.

Sean Bean as Boromir in Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trology.

Bean is best known for his role as Boromir in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and as Alec Trevelyan, Agent 006 in the James Bond film, GoldenEye. In the United Kingdom, his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in the television series Sharpe has also earned him high acclaim.

He graduated from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1983 having won the Silver Medal for his performance in Waiting for Godot. His early work involved a mixture of stage and screen work. His first national exposure came in an advert for non-alcoholic lager. He appeared in his first film in 1986 when he played Ranuccio Thomasoni in Derek Jarman’s film Caravaggio he then reunited with the director on War Requiem in 1988.

During the late 80s and early 90s he became an established actor on British television. He had notable performances in the BBC productions Clarissa and Lady Chatterley.

The 14-episode Sharpe television series was based on Bernard Cornwell’s novels about the Napoleonic Wars and started with Sharpe’s Rifles. The series followed the fortunes of Richard Sharpe as he rose from Lieutenant to Major in the British Army. His popularity in the Sharpe series became an in-joke in many of his later films and he works the word “sharp” into his characters’ dialogue whenever possible. For example, in his first scene in The Fellowship of the Ring, he pricks his finger on a shard of the sword Narsil and comments, “Still sharp”.

His first notable Hollywood appearance was as an Irish terrorist in the 1992 film adaptation of Patriot Games. This would be the first of several villains that he would portray. He became Alec Trevelyan (MI6’s 006), the major villain of GoldenEye, weapons expert Spence in Ronin (1998), a wife-beating ex-con in Essex Boys (2000) and the malevolent kidnapper-jewel thief in Don’t Say a Word (2001). His perhaps most widely seen role was as Boromir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, although his only major part was in the first of the films, only appearing briefly in the extended editions of the latter two.