When actor Sean Bean shows up in a movie, it’s understood that his character is probably going to die. In a new interview with ScreenRant, Bean discussed this phenomenon and revealed which on-screen death is his favorite from over the years.
Bean played Boromir in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings series, and his character had a very memorable death scene in The Fellowship of the Ring. He was tempted by the power of the One ring, but he ultimately did the right thing and sacrificed himself to save the hobbits. This was Bean’s favorite on-screen death in his decades of acting.
“I suppose the best death was Boromir in Lord of the Rings, that was a very epic kind of death, it was very emotional, very moving, and Peter Jackson allowed me enough time to die and milk it, and get the music and pathos. I like that one,” Bean explained.
Bean’s first on-screen death was in the 1986 movie Caravaggio. Bean’s character had his throat cut, and it was a brutally graphic scene. No one could have guessed how many more times they would see Bean die on screen after that.
Another memorable death scene was in 1995’s GoldenEye, in which Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond drops Bean’s Trevelyan from a satellite. Years later, in HBO’s Game of Thrones, Bean’s Eddard Stark had his head lopped off in Season 1.
Bean doesn’t die in every movie, though. His characters survived the events of National Treasure, Silent Hill, Troy, and The Martian.
