After Dying 23 Times On Screen, Sean Bean Starts Rejecting Roles Where His Character Dies

If you’ve ever seen any movie or TV series starring Sean Bean, you probably know the fate of the character he plays. Spoiler alert: he dies. The actor has “died” a whopping 23 times on screen, and has done it in movies like The Lord of The Rings, GoldenEye, Equilibrium and even everyone’s favorite TV series Game of Thrones. However, those days are coming to an end.

Bean said he had to cut that out and start surviving, otherwise his roles would be a bit predictable.

In one instance, the producers even tried to level with the actor, saying they would badly injure Bean’s character instead of having them die.

“I did do one job and they said, ‘We’re going to kill you’, and I was like, ‘Oh no!’ and then they said, ‘Well, can we injure you badly?’ and I was like, ‘OK, so long as I stay alive this time’,” joked Bean.

“I’ve played a lot of baddies, they were great but they weren’t very fulfilling — and I always died,” explained the actor.

The fact that the actor’s characters always seem to die has become a sort of a meme, with his fans even launching a viral #dontkillseanbean campaign 5 years ago.

Do you know any more actors who died this many times on screen?

Here’s to Sean Bean’s characters surviving in the future!

Just in case you’re wondering, here is a list of movies where Bean’s characters died:

Ranuccio “Caravaggio” (1986)
German Soldier “War Requiem” (1989)
Tadgh McCabe “The Field” (1990)
Carver Doone “Lorna Doone” (1990)
[Robert Lovelace “Clarissa” (1991)
Gabriel Lewis “Screen One: Tell Me That You Love Me” (1991)
Sean Miller”Patriot Games” (1992)
Lord Richard Fenton “Scarlett” (1994)
Alec Trevelyan “GoldenEye” (1995)
Dave Toombs “Airborne” (1998)
Jason Locke “Essex Boys” (2000)
Patrick Koster “Don’t Say a Word” (2001)
Boromir “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001)
Cleric Errol Partridge”Equilibrium” (2002)
Robert Aske “Henry VIII” (2003)
Dr. Merrick “The Island” (2005)
John Ryder “The Hitcher” (2007)
Bryant “Outlaw” (2007)
Loki “Far North” (2007)
John Dawson “Red Riding: 1974” (2008)
Pyke Kubic / Reese Kubic “Ca$h” (2010)
Ulrich”Black Death” (2010)
Markus Kane “Death Race 2” (2010)
Jones “Age of Heroes” (2011)
Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark “Game of Thrones: Baelor” (2011)
Harry “Silent Hill: Revelation” (2012)
Frank Stinson “Wicked Blood” (Bad Blood) (2014)
Inspector John Marlott “The Frankenstein Chronicles: Lost and Found” (2015)
Regis Lucis Caelum “Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV” (2016; animated)

People online are showing support for the actor