AOL Chat Transcript – December 14th, 2001
AOL:Hey, everyone! Get excited, because Elijah Wood will be here shortly! In the meantime, visit Keyword: Elijah Wood to learn more about him. You can also go to Keyword: LOTR to get more info on ‘The Lord of the Rings’! I’m your hostess, Jessica Mae, and I’m really glad to be here tonight with you all.
AOL:’Lord of the Rings’ star Elijah Wood has arrived! Welcome, Elijah. It’s so great to have you with us tonight.
Elijah Wood:Hey! Thanks!
AOL:I saw you earlier on TRL. It looked like you and the rest of the cast were having a blast!
Elijah Wood:It was really good fun! We’re all incredible friends, so it’s always a real treat when we can do press things together. We can take over the show and display how well we get along. TRL was great too! Lots of crazy Hobbit behavior.
AOL:Well, our members have a bunch of questions, so let’s get started!
Question:Does it amaze you that you will always be the ringbearer to all ‘LOTR’ fans? I can’t imagine having such an honor!
Elijah Wood:It is a real honor, but I think the honor beyond that is if the people who have read the books and have seen the film enjoy it, that’s worth it. If I’ve achieved Frodo in the fans’ eyes, that is the true honor.
Question:Has Frodo rubbed off on you in any way?
Elijah Wood:I think the Hobbit nature has rubbed off on me. I related to Hobbits in the sense that they love good friends, food drink and good food. I think once we cemented the relationships with the Hobbits, we definitely exude Hobbitness.
Question:How would you describe Middle-earth?
Elijah Wood:Middle-earth was actually written by Tolkien in a way that it was actually as if it was England ages ago that had been forgotten: very lush and grand and encapsulating mountains, prairies, desolate lands. New Zealand is actually perfect in terms of the representation. I can’t think of any better place to represent Middle-earth.
AOL:Sarah asks:
Question:What was it like wearing those wonderful Hobbit feet?
Elijah Wood:The Hobbit feet were great initially, but the novelty did wear off. I’ve never worn that many prosthetics before. It was an incredible work of art, a defining feature. We started at 5AM and had to stand for an hour and a half while they applied them, so we did get tired after a while. My feet were the sweatiest, so it would melt the glue, and they would fall off after a while.
AOL:CJo89 would like to know:
Question:Which of your co-stars was your favorite to work with?
Elijah Wood:That’s a very good question. I don’t know if I do have a favorite. I did look forward to working with the four Hobbits the most. We started out within the first six weeks of preparation, spending our time together. Whenever we filmed together, it was the best. We had a great time. We brought a lot of atmosphere to the set.
AOL: Elijah, I’ve been dying to ask you…
Question:I’ve heard that the fellowship all got matching tattoos. Where are they located, and what’s the meaning behind them?
Elijah Wood:The tattoos are in various places. Some are on people’s shoulders or arms. I have one just below my waist. Orlando has one on his wrist. We all got them as a function of our passion for working on this project. It was such a profound life experience, we wanted to mark it with an emblem or a symbol. It’s a symbol that stands for nine. We were all holding each other’s hands, it hurt so much.
AOL:Steven asks:
Question:Have you read all of the books?
Elijah Wood:I have to be honest, I haven’t actually finished them. I know that all of you fans could potentially crucify me for that! It was a function of the Middle-earth that Frodo and all of the characters came alive. I tend to kind of approach things in a more natural sense. I gained as much information as I could from the first six weeks of discussion. A lot of people consulted the books, and they were already around. I haven’t actually finished it, but I have read pieces. I didn’t completely disregard it.
AOL:Well, no matter what your approach, you’ve definitely lived the story.
Question:Which scene from the movie is your favorite?
Elijah Wood:My favorite is the sequence of the mines, the first scene. It’s the most exciting. I’m in love with the cave troll now! I got so sad when the cave troll dies. He gets shot through the head with an arrow, and he makes this terrible sound! The poor, confused cave troll. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He just never had the proper guidance.
AOL:Elijah! You’re so sensitive! 🙂
Jared67 wonders:
Question:What can we expect from the sequels?
Elijah Wood:Well, the story progresses. Frodo makes his way to Mt. Doom to destroy the ring. Things get darker for Frodo. The search continues for the other two missing Hobbits. There’s an incredible battle scene, which I can’t wait to see.
AOL:I know that you’ve been busy lately Elijah.
Question:I’m sure that your press schedule must be insane. What’s the best and worst part of promoting a movie?
Elijah Wood:This is certainly a breath of fresh air! The worst part is constantly on… within a whole day dealing with the same questions. You start losing the ability to answer the questions. There’s only so many times you can answer the same question different ways. It’s just difficult to get the energy to answer over and over again. The best is definitely traveling. We just went to London. It’s also great to have a reunion with the cast members. It makes it a lot easier to get by with them there.
AOL:Rings9 wonders:
Question:We all know that the ring has the power to make the wearer invisible. If you could be invisible, where would you go and what would you do?
Elijah Wood:I don’t know, there are a lot of things I’d love to do. A dream I had as a child would be to hide in Disneyland and stay in the park overnight and get in for free. I’d take some friends along, and we’d ride the rides all night. Splash Mountain, come on! That’s just freaky. It’s all happy at first, but then the scary music comes on and you plunge to your death!
AOL:Oooo, take me with you! I’ll go! 🙂
Question:Our female audience members will never forgive me if I don’t ask this next one. Do you have a girlfriend?
Elijah Wood:Unfortunately, I don’t. I’m a hopeless romantic, and it’s quite painful to not have a relationship with a girl. Sadly, I’m single.
AOL:Well, I know some available girls, if you’re looking. 😉 Speaking of romance…
Question:Do you believe in true love?
Elijah Wood:Of course I do! I wouldn’t be a hopeless romantic if I didn’t. I’m a sucker for romantic films. I cry like a child! For people who are hopeless romantics,Love Jones is a wonderful film. Of course, so is ‘When Harry Met Sally.’ Everyone sheds a tear.
AOL:Awww, you are so sweet, Elijah! Girls are going to be knocking down your door! FrankieMU5 wants to
know:
Question:What’s your worst habit?
Elijah Wood:I bite my fingernails. In fact, if you see the movie, there’s a scene where Frodo is caressing the ring under the table. You’ll see a close-up of my hand, and you’ll see how badly I bite my fingernails. When you smoke and bite your nails at the same time, you know you’ve got issues.
AOL:ICPRiddlebox1324 says:
Question:I just wanted to say I am a huge fan of yours, and is there any way I can get an autograph?
Elijah Wood:Well, if I see you somewhere, and you have a pen and something for me to sign, of course, absolutely! Just come up and say,Elijah, I was on the chat, and I asked you for your autograph.” I’ll sign something for you.
AOL:Lef3uk asks:
Question:Elijah, is it true that you kept the actual ring from the movie?
Elijah Wood:I did. I was given the ring by Peter and his partner Fran when I went to say goodbye to them at the airport leaving New Zealand. They said they had a gift for me, handed me the box, and there was a little pouch with the ring inside it. It was very sweet.
AOL:Here’s a good question from
RockefellerNYC:
Question:What animal would describe your personality, and why?
Elijah Wood:A monkey. I’m pretty active, and I like to climb things, and I was always called a monkey as a kid. I liked to climb in the cupboards. I like hugging.
AOL:LOL, ZanAmadio has a really
funny statement:
Question:If you are in fact Elijah Wood, what did you do for fun while in New Zealand?
Elijah Wood: I’m actually an imposter. Elijah couldn’t make it! LOL.
AOL:Ha ha!
Elijah Wood:I learned how to surf, which was great fun. Us Hobbits took up the art of surfing. I got a surfboard and a wetsuit. There was many a surfing trip. It was a great way to enjoy the beauty of New Zealand. There were a few kind of vacation-vacations. We went to Sydney for a week, some bars and restaurants. A few people did some bungee jumping. I didn’t do it — I wish I would have.
AOL:MOMof4gr8kids would like to
ask:
Question:Tolkien’s Middle-earth is so vibrant and rich with its own history that it’s easy for readers to become absorbed into his universe. I realize that you were working surrounded by equipment, but were you able to experience any of the magic of the story?
Elijah Wood:Oh, I think so, absolutely. The artistry and the passion involved were so incredible to be around. It really represented the magic of the books. Even though there was a lot of equipment, the location was real. It was on a farmer’s land. The set had been built a year before and was ready for us. It was there right before our eyes, all of New Zealand as well, and looking at it from the perspective that it is Middle-earth was amazing.
AOL:Kimbagirlie asks:
Question:How did you hear about this movie?
Elijah Wood:Well, Kimbagirlie, I heard about this from Harry Knowles on the set of ‘The Faculty.’ He told me I HAD to be Frodo. It sounded so cool, but nothing was set in stone. Once I heard they were casting for it from my agent, I jumped into the audition process, and the rest is history, as they say.
AOL:Bproud4ever wonders:
Question:Do you feel like they have stayed true to Tolkien’s vision, especially concerning Arwen and the elves?
Elijah Wood:I believe so. I think that it was our primary focus to stay as true to Tolkien as possible, especially since it was made by fans of the book. In terms of Arwen, Arwen isn’t in the books as much as she is in the films, but the story of Arwen is represented true. For the purpose of the film, in adding a tad bit of romance to increase the dynamic of the film, it was important to flush out the character a little bit more. We just increased what was already basically there from the books to the film.
AOL:Here’s another good one from
Ficklin:
Question:Have any weird experiences when you were in New Zealand?
AOL:Come on, tell us, Elijah! There has to be one. Give us the dirt!
Elijah Wood:I can’t think of any weird experiences. Actually, there was time that during the month of November — which for New Zealand is heading towards summer. The weather isn’t supposed to be too cold. It got horrible and started to rain, which was OK for the sequence we were filming. It started to rain early in the morning, then as they day progressed, it turned into sleet, then snow. The snow became so heavy, they had to stop filming. The snow looked incredible, but it became a hazard, so we had to rush out of there. The Hobbits hopped into a car, but we got stuck in a ditch. An SUV came by and towed us out. After that, we sat in the laundry room of the hotel and dried off our feet and drank wine. But the snow was amazing — the flakes were huge, and you could see the massive details of the flakes.
AOL:Well, Elijah, that’s all the time that we have for today. Thanks so much for stopping by to chat. I can’t wait to see the movie!
Elijah Wood:Thank you guys for showing up. It’s been really fun chatting with you. These experiences are really cool and take me away from press junkets. Enjoy the film on the 19th!
AOL:Bye! Happy holidays!
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Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)
28 Days (2000) UK 
Walk on the Moon, A (1999) UK
G.I. Jane (1997)
American Yakuza (1994)
Young Americans, The (1993)
Ruby Cairo (1993)
Young Guns II (1990) 
Witness (1985)
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Onegin (1999) UK
Plunkett & Macleane (1999) UK
Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) UK
Inventing the Abbotts (1997)
Stealing Beauty (1996)
That Thing You Do! (1996) UK
Empire Records (1995)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
Bless the Child (2000) UK
eXistenZ (1999) UK
King Lear (1997) (TV) UK
Hamlet (1990) IL
Dreamchild (1985)
Dance with a Stranger (1985)
Alien (1979) UK
S.O.S. Titanic (1979) (TV)
Robin and Marian (1976)
Bofors Gun, The (1968) UK
Sean Bean (Boromir)
GoldenEye (1995)
Patriot Games (1992) UK
Field, The (1990) UK
Stormy Monday (1988)
Sean Bean will be on Regis and Kelly (FOX) on Jan 3rd
Martyn Sanderson (Bree Gatekeeper)
Ned Kelly (1970)
John Noble (Denethor)
Airtight (1999) (TV) UK
Nostradamus Kid, The (1993)
Peter Mackenzie (Elendil)
Chill Factor (1999) UK
Major League: Back to the Minors (1998)
Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)
Karl Urban (Eomer)
Heaven (1998)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
Matrix, The (1999) UK
Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The (1994) UK
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
What Lies Beneath (2000) UK
Jack Bull, The (1999) (TV)
Nostradamus Kid, The (1993)
David Wenham (Faramir)
Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (1999)
Dark City (1998)
Elijah Wood (Frodo)
Faculty, The (1998) UK
Good Son, The (1993)
Radio Flyer (1992) UK
Paradise (1991)
Internal Affairs (1990)
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
Pushing Tin (1999) UK
Talented Mr. Ripley, The (1999) UK
Elizabeth (1998) UK
Cate Blanchett will be on David Letterman (CBS) on Jan 8th
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
X-Men (2000)
Apt Pupil (1998) UK
Gods and Monsters (1998) UK
Restoration (1995)
To Die for (1994) UK
Six Degrees of Separation (1993) UK
Scandal (1989)
Keep, The (1983) UK
Alfred the Great (1969) UK
Ian McKellen will be on Regis and Kelly (FOX) on Jan 7th
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)
Secret of the Andes (1998) UK
Protector, The (1997/I)
Great White Hype, The (1996)
Stargate (1994)
Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter, The (1993)
Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing (1992) (TV)
Under Cover (1991) (TV)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) UK
Waxwork (1988)
King Solomon’s Mines (1985)
Victor/Victoria (1982)
Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1982)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) UK
Andy Serkis (Gollum)
Topsy-Turvy (1999) UK
John Leigh (Hama)
Frighteners, The (1996)
Harry Sinclair (Isildur)
Braindead (1992) UK
Dominic Monaghan (Merry)
Hostile Waters (1997) (TV) UK
Bruce Spence (Mouth of Sauron)
Dark City (1998)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) UK
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) UK
Sean Astin (Sam)
Sky Is Falling, The (2000)
Kimberly (1999)
Icebreaker (1999)
Deterrence (1999) UK
Dish Dogs (1998)
Courage Under Fire (1996)
Harrison Bergeron (1995) (TV)
Safe Passage (1994)
Encino Man (1992) UK
Toy Soldiers (1991) UK
Memphis Belle (1990)
War of the Roses, The (1989) UK
Like Father, Like Son (1987)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
Sleepy Hollow (1999) UK
Jinnah (1998) UK
Odyssey, The (1997) (TV)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) UK
Last Unicorn, The (1982)
Safari 3000 (1982)
Serial (1980)
Arabian Adventure (1979)
1941 (1979) UK
Return from Witch Mountain (1978)
Wicker Man, The (1973) UK
Three Musketeers, The (1973) UK
Death Line (1972) UK
Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) UK
Theatre of Death (1967) UK
Psycho-Circus (1966)
She (1965/I) UK
Gorgon, The (1964) UK
Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959) UK
Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)
Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) UK
Scott of the Antarctic (1948) UK
Brian Sergent (Ted Sandyman)
Braindead (1992)
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
True Crime (1999) UK
Titanic (1997)
Bounty, The (1984)
Gandhi (1982) UK
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
Shadow Hours (2000)
Ghost, The (2000)
Storytellers, The (1999) UK
Bride of Chucky (1998) UK
Death Machine (1995)
Color of Night (1994)
Amos & Andrew (1993)
Child’s Play 3 (1991) UK
Body Parts (1991) UK
Jungle Fever (1991) UK
Graveyard Shift (1990)
Child’s Play 2 (1990) UK
Hidden Agenda (1990)
Mississippi Burning (1988) UK
Ragtime (1981)
Jim Rygiel (SFX)
Anna and the King (1999)
Species (1995)
Batman Returns (1992)
Alien³ (1992)
Ghost (1990)
Last Starfighter, The (1984)
2010 (1984)
Howard Shore (Composer)
Yards, The (2000)
eXistenZ (1999)
Dogma (1999)
Analyze This (1999)
Cop Land (1997)
Crash (1996)
That Thing You Do! (1996)
Moonlight and Valentino (1995)
Guilty as Sin (1993)
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
M. Butterfly (1993)
Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
Signs of Life (1989)
She-Devil (1989)
Innocent Man, An (1989)
Moving (1988)
Fly, The (1986)
After Hours (1985)
Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)
Scanners (1981)
Peter Jackson (Director)
Frighteners, The (1996)
Braindead (1992)
To get more information, use the sites I use like:
mydigiguide.com, tv-now.com and IMDB.com
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You can thank Nona for all these great articles about the killer Sean Bean. Take a look!
BEAN THERE, DONE THAT
Glamour Magazine (UK)
January 2002
by Deborah Joseph
After three marriages, you’d think Sean Bean would be over women. But in an unusally candid moment he tells Deborah Joseph there are at least three members of the opposite sex he can’t live without.
Sean’s in chilled mode, padding round his Dorchester hotel room in scuffed boots, shaking his head at the images of war on the TV.
“God, what’s going on in the world makes me so angry,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “We’re fed information and no one knows what’s true and what isn’t. We’re just expected to accept what the government tells us!” It’s an uncharacteristic outburst from a man who’s notoriously laid-back. “Do you think I’m laid-back? Oh that’s good – but believe me, there are definitely things that make me angry.”
Sean Bean is a man of contradictions. A true gent on the one hand, he orders, then pours me a beer. He chuckles politely, even when I ask questions he doesn’t want to answer (anything to do with women and his three ex-wives). Yet there’s something about the inscrutability of his eyes that hints at the darker side often reflected in his work.
He’s a performer of bad boys and heroes in equal measure. On the hero front, he became a national star as the uniform-clad soldier in the period drama Sharpe, and smouldered as lothario gardener Mellors in Lady Chatterley. But he’s also oozed evil as the disfigured turncoat who challenged 007 in Goldeneye, played a concinving IRA psycopath battling Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and a kidnapper in the upcoming Don’t Say a Word with Michael Douglas. And now, in the extraordinary Lord of the Rings, he plays hero Boromir alongside Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett.
The three spent a year together filming in New Zealand. “They’re great women,” he says. “Liv is very bright and funny. But mainly I hung around with Viggo [Mortensen, who plays Aragorn in the film]. We clicked straight away; we have a similar attitude to life.”
His choice od roles – often sexy and dangerous – have given him a sex-symbol status that’s made him the subject of tabloid gossip. You can see why. He looks much younger than his 42 years and his eyes have a sexy, lived-in appeal. However, with three failed marriages behind him, his love life has been tumultuous. The first was to his childhood sweetheart Debra James – rumour had it they split because she didn’t want to move to London. His second marriage to ex-bread actress MElanie Hill, who he met at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), ended acrimoniously in 1997 amid rumours of his laddish behaviour. They have two daughters, Lorna and Molly. And his third marriage was to another actress, Abigail Cruttenden, whom he met on the set of Sharpe. They split during his year away in New Zealand for Lord of the Rings and have a daughter, Evie.
Though he’s not willing to be drawn on his marriages, he does say, “It’s just about balancing the good and the bad. I’ve definitely been inspired by my wives and have taken away good things from my marriages.” Such as? “Abigail had a very different upbringing to me and I think we opened each other’s eyes to the way different people live.”
He’s single at the moment and lives alonf in Hampsted, northwest London – unless he has his daughters staying. Does he like being a bachelor? “Yeah, I don’t mind it.” Is he a dab hand with the cleaning? “Well, no one likes doing the cleaning, let’s face it!”
For Sean, though, washing up is especially problematic. If a knife falls on the floor, he can’t pick it up because of a strange supersition he’s inherited from his father. “I’m really weird about it,” he confesses. “The knife stays there until someone comes round and they have to pick it up for me.”
Does he still believe in marriage? “Not really. But I’ve never once thought, ‘God, I’m never getting married again; it’s been really awful’. I’ve got three great girls, so I wouldn’t say I’d never do it again.”
What does he look for in a woman? “It’s too obvious to say the physical. It needs to be something deeper.” He pauses, obviously finding this question difficult to answer. “I like femininity. And gentleness.”
It’s too much of a cliche to pass his off as a working class hero just because he’s northern. Sheffield born, he turned down the opportunity to work for his father’s welding business to train at RADA.
“I was always a rebel,” he admits. “I must’ve been to just leave everything and move to London to study acting and ballet. I always felt there was more out there. I’d wanted to be a footballer, and a pop star. I used to play guitar in a band with a few mates. I was a big fan of Lou Reed and David Bowie. I dyed my hair red and used eyeliner… but I never wore lipstick. Ever.”
Unlike many of his peers; he has no issue with where he came from, and although he doesn’t ooze money or flashiness, nor is he ashamed of where he is now. “I’m just lucky I’m paid well for doing what I
love,” he explains.
“But that doesn’t mean I want to show it off.” So what’s been his biggest extravagance? “When I first made a bit of money about 15 years ago I went out and bought myself a Jaguar. My dad drives it now, but I got my BMW nicked the other day so he’s lent it to me until I get a new car. It feels weird driving it again.”
Sean may have left Sheffield a long time ago, but he once said the experience of scoring for his team Sheffield United, in the drama When Saturday Comes was better than sex. When I ask him if he had to choose between football and sex, which would lose out, I finally get a real insight into what makes him tick. “Football. Definitely football.” He snorts, as though me thinking he’d really give up sex for anything is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. Forget the speculation about his love life; the one headline he couldn’t live with is ‘Sean Bean would give up sex for football’.
(Note: The pic of Sean with two of his daughters incorrectly identifies them – It’s actually Molly (left) and Evie (in the middle). Lorna isn’t pictured. Evie’s mother is Abigail Cruttenden.)
Sean Bean: A death scene to die for
By Bruce Kirkland
NEW YORK — Yorkshire Englishman Sean Bean has one of the great heroic death scenes in recent movie history in the first instalment of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Bean, 42, plays Boromir, one of two human members of the Fellowship and readers of the Tolkien book already know he is doomed, although in the book, this takes place in the second part of the trilogy. Filmmaker Peter Jackson changed the timing “for dramatic purposes,” he tells The Sun.
Bean was impressed with the manner Jackson staged his demise in battle because most movie death scenes “are messy and violent — which is not very nice.” Boromir dies as he regains his nobility in a scene shared with co-star and fellow human character Viggo Mortensen.
“It is good I suppose to go with some kind of dignity and knowing that you’ve learnt something on the way. He’s a better man for it, I suppose. He’s in good shape (emotionally) and he leaves in peace.”
The moment is not schmaltzy. “It’s how it was shot,” says Bean, best known for playing hero Richard Sharpe in the English TV series named for the character.
“It was great doing that scene with Viggo because he is such a generous, truthful actor and I’m glad he was there with me at the end, as it were, and he brought a sort of peacefulness to it and a spirituality to it, which I think he naturally has as a person. So that was of great help to me.”
BEAN THERE, DONE THAT
by Neil Norman
Sean Bean doesn’t come out to play with the press much. Despite his being a card-carrying Brit movie star who commands extraordinary fidelity among his legions of female fans, he doesn’t give a lot of interviews. He’s been hyped as the strong, silent type, an unreconstructed male with roots of Sheffield steel and a no-nonsense attitude to work, women and football.
This is the guy who has ‘100% Blade’ tattooed on his shoulder in honour of his football team, Sheffield United; the man who has been quoted as saying that a woman’s place is at home in the kitchen (barefoot and pregnant) while the man goes out to work. He’s a 21st-century Hunter/Gatherer, a Bloke of Blokes, a Northern Lad as opposed to a Southern Geezer. A thrice-married rogue and a scallywag with the ladies. He’s certainly everybody’s favourite bit of rough on screen – Mellors in Lady Chatterley, the archetypal James Bond villain, Sharpe, the hero of the Napoleonic Wars.
Some have suggested that he may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this is a cheap shot. The trouble is – due largely to his own reticence – very few people have actually talked to him at any great length.
One thing is 100 per cent certain: he doesn’t play the showbiz game. One gets the impression he would rather sit in a fridge and stick lollysticks in his eyes than sit down and talk to a journalist. This is something he is trying to change. ‘I haven’t courted publicity in the past,’ he says. ‘I suppose you could put it down to a natural reticence. The more you put yourself in the spotlight, the more you get examined. Not that I’ve got anything to be ashamed of. I’m not really putting myself on chat shows just to raise my profile. I find it a little strange talking about myself all the time. I’m getting better at it because now it’s so much a part of the job.’
Acting is a job for Bean, but it’s not just any job. It’s The Job, and he treats it with respect. He’s done a number of other, lesser jobs in the past – he’s been an apprentice welder, a snow shoveller and a cheese porter in Marks & Spencer – a job that famously lasted one entire morning.
But this job has sent him to some far-flung worlds, from the Ukraine for Sharpe, to Paris for Ronin and most recently, into Middle-earth for Lord of the Rings. Bean plays Boromir, one of the few human characters in Tolkien’s fantastical saga of hobbits and orcs, elves and a miscellany of mythical creatures. Was Bean a Tolkien fan before he was cast in the role? ‘I read it about 15 or 16 years ago,’ he says. ‘I’ve always been interested in mythology, but it is quite a dense read. It’s one of those books that you have to keep referring back to in order to find out who’s who and who is related to who. But you don’t get a great deal from Boromir in the book; [director Peter] Jackson’s imagination is quite off-kilter, he brings something quite fresh to the story.’
Lord of the Rings marks a departure for Bean in more ways than one; it is the first time in a career typified by realistic characters (from an IRA terrorist in Patriot Games to SAS man in Bravo Two Zero) that he has played in a full-blown fantasy. The fact that Boromir is not himself a fantastical character clearly helped him with the characterisation. ‘He is a valiant warrior,’ Bean explains. ‘A very practical man whose family has been deteriorating as a result of the war, but he also has a vulnerable quality. It was quite good fun for me playing Boromir because he is a practical man, and you’d see these elves and weird people walking around and you’d think, “F***ing hell, where does he fit in?” That reaction definitely helped with my character.’
Working on a movie involving special effects on a grand scale brought additional problems. Quite apart from the daily chore of having to run from the main set to the second unit and then trot over to an empty space for blue-screen work, Bean’s sense of unreality was heightened in other ways. ‘There were some funny times,’ he recalls with a crooked smile. ‘These little guys standing in for Frodo and the hobbits had to wear a blue sock with yellow balls on their faces. The actor’s face would then be superimposed on it afterwards. But you’d be talking to a blue sock.’
This is not the sort of thing they warn you about at drama school, I’d imagine. Especially at RADA, where Bean spent three years learning his craft.
Sitting in a photographic studio in jeans, boots and a fairly horrible tan fleece jacket, Bean still looks like a working-class drama student. Now 42, he exhibits few of the pretensions or egocentricities typical of many of his contemporaries. He is a reluctant interviewee, a cautious talker whose reticence appears 100 per cent genuine. He thinks long and hard before answering each question, leading some interrogators to assume that he is inarticulate, even dumb. While it’s true that he sometimes shows signs of an unusually unreliable memory (on a recent television appearance he forgot the name of the character he was playing in Lord of the Rings), I suspect this is due more to a vague sense of panic that grips him on such occasions, than to a lack of brain cells. He is simply not used to playing the publicity game and therefore does not have the ready ammunition of soundbites to deliver with glib precision.
Bean grew up in Handsworth, a working-class suburb of Sheffield. His mother was a secretary and his father a steelworker. He left school at 16 with two O levels (Art and English) and a vague idea that he wanted to be an artist, before he drifted into work as an apprentice to his father. In between work and football, playing the piano and guitar, he kept painting, and exhibited his work in a Sheffield art-shop window.
‘Drawing or painting was what I really wanted to do. I thought I’d become a commercial artist and then move on. I went to a few art schools but couldn’t really hack it. I worked for my dad for about three or four years and then went to technical college in Rotherham where I learned about steel and composites. Right next to it was an art and drama college, and I enrolled on the art course.’
In between lessons, he used to peer through the door of the drama classes, and found himself drawn towards the discipline. After a while, he switched courses from art to drama, and knew he had finally discovered his vocation. ‘I felt really secure and comfortable in it. It seemed to combine everything I was interested in from music to art.’
After a year on the drama course he applied to RADA and was accepted. ‘I felt like an outsider for about six months, but that was more to do with London than RADA,’ he says. ‘It was quite a shock to the system. Until then I’d used to come down with me mates for Bowie concerts, then go straight back up.’
Bean was at RADA at exactly the right time for his particular style of acting. Standard English was being taught for classic texts but not at the expense of regional accents. He was encouraged to maintain his Sheffield accent and can now shift gamely between the regions of the United Kingdom, or deliver an acceptable received pronunciation if the occasion demands.
His cites Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Tom Courtenay as role models. ‘They were my sort of heroes. And it’s come back to that, thank God. Look at Russell Crowe in Gladiator. And I loved Albert Finney in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. These guys are real men and probably politically incorrect, but they were totally the truth. I watched Richard Harris in This Sporting Life and when I worked with him [in The Field] he didn’t disappoint me. I used to remember watching these films growing up in Sheffield. They were real to me. Finney shooting that fat woman up the arse with an air rifle in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It was like life. When I went to drama school, these were the images I carried with me.’
Given his rough-hewn machismo and the robustness of his role models, it is supremely ironic that his first movie should have been Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio, in which he played the painter’s male lover. Bean can laugh at the irony of his situation in retrospect, though he admits to shutting his eyes at the time.
‘Yeah, it was quite weird,’ he laughs. ‘You couldn’t make a film with Derek and not feel weird. He was so extraordinary. I was very new to the business and my first film was with Derek Jarman – a real artist making a film about a real artist. He just let you do what you want. I went to meet him in his flat in Charing Cross Road and he asked me about my home life and football and stuff like that. He was interested in the reality of my background in Sheffield. I was playing Caravaggio’s loverÉ but I didn’t really think about that too much. I just wanted to work with great people and he was a great person.’
Bean’s defining moment came in 1992 when he was cast as the Peninsular War hero Richard Sharpe, after first choice Paul McGann suffered a leg injury and had to drop out. Flukes don’t get much luckier and Bean took the opportunity and the role and bent it to his will. The result was a hugely popular historical swashbuckling telly drama that lasted for five seasons.
‘There’s still talk about a feature film,’ he says with caution. ‘I love the Napoleonic Wars. I remember having a big board and spraying it green and putting little trees and Airfix men on to make massive armies to play with. The Battle of Waterloo capped the series but we could go back a bit. There is plenty of material to explore.’
There are stories about Bean’s past – including a punch-up for which he was fined £50 for actual bodily harm, and a somewhat unreconstructed way with women – but no real scandals. He has been married three times and has three daughters, two by his second wife Melanie Hill and one by his third, Abigail Cruttenden, from whom he is now divorced.
At the time of his break-up with Hill, in particular, Bean came under some heavy flak for his attitude to women. Does he have any regrets about that? ‘It was crazy, really,’ he says, fidgeting slightly. ‘It was blown out of all proportion. Then again you should be able to say what you feel. You have to be yourself and say what you are and I’d rather take that risk than pander to people.’
He maintains a complicated but solid relationship with his daughters, in spite of the fact that he is away from home a lot. ‘It’s a matter of time. When you do have the time at home, you have to make it as good as possible. My family and my kids understand that. I think it’s important to keep a strong link. You might spend three months away but then you follow it with three months at home, so it balances out.’
Given the fact that he has maintained his status as a British heart-throb and yet is clearly a bloke who likes family life with all that it entails, I wonder whether he might marry again. He pauses, lights a cigarette, fidgets some more.
‘At the present moment in time, no,’ he eventually says. ‘But I wouldn’t say I’d never get married again. I could, yeah. I don’t look back on those experiences with any bitterness. I think of the good times.’
A positive attitude to life. A solid career. And the admiration of thousands of women. A working-class hero is something to be.
‘Lord of the Rings’ actor Sean Bean took big leap into performing
By LUAINE LEE, Scripps Howard News Service
NEW YORK (December 11, 2001 02:06 p.m. EST
When he was working as a welder in his hometown of Sheffield, England, Sean Bean got a crazy idea. He was already studying at an art college and had gotten pretty good at painting and drawing. But when he casually enrolled in a drama class, oops, everything changed.
“It was a big leap of profession from being a welder fabricator to being an actor,” admits Bean, who sits at the mahogany dining room table of his hotel suite and stubs out his cigarette in a saucer.
“That wasn’t something I was familiar with in my family. Sheffield was a very industrial city at that time – since then it’s lost a lot of work up there and things have disappeared. But that’s what my city was famous for, the steel industry. So that was a natural progression.”
His parents were puzzled by his choice, he says. “I was into all sorts of things: I wanted to be in a band, I wanted to be an artist, a scriptwriter and actor. So I don’t think they were that shocked. I’d gone into so many different phases, this is the one that consolidated everything.”
Bean is probably best known in the United States for his portrayal as the brave Napoleonic officer of “The Sharpe Series” on television or as the weapons expert in “Ronin,” the terrorist in “Patriot Games,” or the betraying villain of “GoldenEye.”
But it is his role as the good-guy, noble human Boromir – who champions the cause of the Hobbit, Frodo Baggins, in the new “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” – that people ultimately will remember.
Investing a full year in faraway New Zealand for the role wasn’t easy for Bean, who is the father of three daughters, ages 3, 10 and 14. “I don’t think I would’ve spent that much time from home unless it was something like ‘Lord of the Rings.’ I wouldn’t really like to spend that time away again. They grow up fast, don’t they?”
Bean, 42, says he was gripped by the breadth of his character, who does battle with a variety of fearsome monsters in the classic mythological tale. “He was a complicated and complex man. I found that really interesting to get to grips with. He’s very mixed up, trying to do what’s best for his people – a gentleman really, but he’s in an environment where he’s been on the forefront of war so he’s had to be strong. But within there is a gentleman of very good quality.”
Although he still speaks with the elongated vowels of working-class Northern England, within Bean there is a gentleman of good quality, too.
Married and divorced twice, he thinks an acting career can make marriage both easier and more difficult. “Sometimes absence can make the heart grow stronger but sometimes it can be too long, and it’s very precarious, very unpredictable. But I think it’s possible. Lots of actors and actresses have been happily married for many years.”
Bean, who is soft-spoken and, one suspects, quite shy, admits that one of the major reasons he likes acting is because it affords him the opportunity to learn. “I wasn’t very good at comprehensive school and didn’t really learn that much,” he says, his gray T-shirt wrinkling at the neck.
“I think I learned to get on with people and make friends. I had a good time in that way, but didn’t learn very much from the lessons. And when I left school I just had this real hunger for reading and catching up on things I’d missed at school. I just wanted to read and read – read theater books, plays, novels, history. And when I went to drama school I really applied myself. I really wanted to learn this time around and took to it quite easily.”
Part of the learning is exploring faraway places, from the grimy streets of Dublin to the mystic land of Middle Earth. “Acting educates you a lot,” he says, leaning his chin on both hands.
“It gives you the chance to go into different worlds to study history when you’re playing characters. I played Count Vronsky in ‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy and therefore you research that particular period, and it’s interesting. At the same time it’s educating you. You’re finding out more about history,” he says.
“It takes you all over the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to great places: Africa, New Zealand, Russia, America. And that’s a life-enhancing experience to me. You find out about different cultures and different people, and you learn to respect them more. When you get home and watch on television all this bloodshed and war and hatred of other people, maybe if they traveled a bit more and got to know each other a bit more, maybe we could avoid all this.”
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