Sean Bean

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0:44Do you get more, one does not simply walk into Mordor, or more winter is coming? What do you get going more? Probably winter is coming, especially this time. It's appropriate. When it gets to October, November, yeah. Right. And some people say it and they don't realise they're saying it. And, you know, and they go, oh, it's like that thing, innit? Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Hey, guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Today's main event is Sean Bean. You know him from War of the Rings and Game of Thrones and so many other films, James Bond, etc.

1:23etc. And now starring opposite the great Daniel Day-Lewis in Anemone. This is a very rare, exciting conversation with one of our greats. Thanks, guys, as always, for checking out Happy, Say, Confused. As I said, Sean Bean, rare opportunity. This guy does not do this kind of thing. If you look it up, I think this might be his second podcast he's ever done. Certainly one of a very, very few. So honored that he chose to go deep on his career with me today. He was fantastic so enjoy that coming up very soon before we get to all that uh as always check out our patreon because there are a lot of cool things cooking in the happy sad confused universe including live events patreon.com slash happy sad confused for early access and discount codes so get a load of this stuff um very soon less than two weeks away week and a half away i think um near Comic-Con starts, and I will be very busy.

2:19We're doing a 10th anniversary reunion of Mr. Robot, Sam Esmail, the creator, and of course, Rami Malek and Christian Slater. That's going to be awesome. I'm doing a Star Trek Universe panel with the Starfleet Academy folks and Strange New Worlds. I'm doing a Matrix panel with Lawrence Fishburne and Joe Pantoliano, an X-Men panel with Elliot Page, Nick Holt and James McAvoy. Guys, come on. Oh, Sigourney Weaver. How about that? Alien. So lots of opportunities to see me at New York Comic Con. Come on out. If you haven't got your tickets already, please do so. Also coming up, a couple of live events at 92nd Street Y, including Aziz Ansari, October 14th.

3:04We're showing Good Fortune, his new film. It's fantastic. Keanu Reeves, Keke Palmer, Seth Rogen, and Aziz. And then October 22nd, Nobody Wants This. People love that show. I love that show. The whole cast is coming on out at 92nd Street Y. That's going to be a packed house. That could sell out, actually. So make sure you get your tickets soon for that one. It'll be a big fun night. Oh, here's another fun thing. If you haven't checked out my social media lately, maybe you missed this. I was immortalized by our good buddy Sam Heughan in The Cocktail Diaries. If you're watching this on video, you see I'm showing the new book.

3:41The Cocktail Diaries, a spirited adventure by the one and only Sam Heughan. I did not know this was going to happen. I will say Sam gave me a heads up a month or two ago, said, you know, you may be mentioned in the book. So sure enough, I got my copy, Morning Glory Fizz, a whole fun anecdote about me making this drink at a live event with Sam. So that's fun. I'm immortalized forever in a book, in a book by one of our greats. so um that was a a distinct and unusual honor that i'm really thrilled to share with all of you guys uh and we do have some things cooking with sam i promise he's busy on stage right now playing mcbeth i can say it he can't say it but i can say mcbeth um so he's a little busy but we are going to catch up soon there uh there are plans being made so look out for that okay we're going to get to the main event here's a little context uh sean bean um like i said doesn't do a lot of this.

4:45So really thrilled he chose to trust me with this kind of conversation. He's starring in Anemone. This is the new film that brings us back. One of our great actors, Daniel Day-Lewis. That's right. The retirement is over. He has co-written the script with Ronan Day-Lewis, his son, yes, who directed the film. Definitely a family affair. It is in many respects kind of a two-hander there are a few other characters but the bulk of the film is daniel day lewis and sean bean as estranged brothers um daniel day lewis's character has kind of like gone off the reservation and um sean bean's character jem goes off to kind of bring him back because his uh his son needs him so uh it's a great piece of work from sean from daniel day lewis from ronan who has launched an exciting new film career with this and um it gave me a chance to catch up with sean about his beginnings rada um goldeneye or the rings game of thrones um some of his dramatic work playing villains the memes a little bit of everything he was uh very good natured a good sport and just um a lovely guy to chat with so i'm so thrilled this this came about i hope you guys enjoyed as much as I did.

6:08And without any further ado, oh, by the way, Anemone is out in theaters, I believe this Friday. I assume it's relatively limited, but check your local listings, as they say, and put it on your list. Anemone is the film. Okay. Without any further ado, please enjoy me and Sean Bean. Mr. Sean Bean, you ready? Yes. Yeah. Thank you for doing this, man. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Look, a lot is made about Daniel Day-Lewis being the guy that doesn't do a lot of press. Yeah. I'm honored. Sean. Yeah. I haven't seen much of this What, me talking to people? Yeah, you're doing a long form of conversation so I appreciate it No, I haven't really So it's good, I'm glad to be Well, congratulations, it's for a good cause anemone is the film You've had a lot of big moments in a career but this has got to still be one of those moments like that text, that phone call it's a day Can you give me a little sense of how this one came about?

7:04Yeah, it kind of came out of the blue. And I'd met Daniel before. It must have been about 1985. And I went up for an interview, an audition with him in the West End in London, Glass of the Mohicans. And I remember just acting alongside him with a script, you know, and he was doing his lines and I was doing mine. He said, oh, thanks, Sean. It was really nice to meet him then. He was such a gentleman, so welcoming and generous when we were just doing that, even that little bit of audition piece. And then I didn't get a part. Helbig rise for decades, but then. Yeah, but, you know, that was all right.

7:46And then I worked with a director called Jimmy McGovern, who's a fantastic director. He has a particular style. It's about working class people. It's about the trials and tribulations. they're very poignant and beautiful stories and he kind of kicked my career off a little bit and you know probably about 15 years ago now he offered me a part where I played a transvestite transgender character which was quite a challenge I remember at the time it was a hell of a challenge and I think I pulled it off you know it was one of the most enjoyable parts I've ever done And by doing that, I formed a relationship with Jimmy.

8:35And we've worked together ever since. And, you know, he cast me in a thing called Broke, and I did. And then the last thing he cast me in was a project called Time. And Stephen Graham. Stephen Graham, yeah. And Daniel rang me. And kind of out of the blue, my agent says, oh, Daniel, I wonder if you could have your number. Danny Dillow he said alright yeah what if you said no no I think I'm good yeah what could he possibly offer me yeah I know and anyway he just rang up and he told me how much he loved time and how he'd followed various sort of you know roles I played in my career and I I never expected that you know at all it was totally out of the blue and I'm very flattered by that you know I can't think of a more flattering phone call to get yeah I know it's a it was incredible and I couldn't believe it.

9:27Oh, thanks, you know. There's not much you can say, really. And I think this evolved because he'd seen me in those projects and because we'd had that conversation before. I think he wanted me to play the part of his brother in Eminem. And that call came out of the blow. I was just laid in the bed watching, I think it was EastEnders. It's a popular sitcom that we have in England. Well, it came out of the book for everybody. Frankly, I mean, it's like, I mean, we didn't, yeah, the world thought Daniel Day was done. And then these cassette photos come out. I mean, it sounds like you guys were probably trying to shoot this a little bit in secret.

10:06Like, it's a small, relatively small production. And then the world finds out not only, yeah, that Daniel was in it. Daniel has co-written it. His son is, I mean, a relatively young man directing this, co-writing this. I know, 28, I think. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about, I mean, I heard you guys talk at the, I guess it was a press conference yesterday, but it's a very unique circumstance. I mean, first of all, very rare to work in this kind of proximity, this one-on-one manner with Samantha Morton and Daniel Day-Lewis. But also in this like familial setting. Yeah, yeah. A very intimate story and an intimate circumstance, I would imagine.

10:41Very intimate, very close, kind of knit, kind of drama. and the fact that his son was directing it and and I mean I can see why there is an attraction for Daniel because it is his son and I guess he wanted to introduce him to that world that I mean Ron is already familiar with that world because of his father and his mother and and and being you know in the midst of people from an artistic background and a film background but what he brought to is an incredible visual style, which I was just knocked out by. I only saw it the other day, I think it was on Tuesday. And apart from the emotional, gritty, raw emotional drama between all the characters, especially between the two brothers, There was this wonderful, magical kind of visual aspect to it, which was surreal and beautiful and poignant, and it kind of juxtaposed with the heavy kitchen sink drama.

11:57Well, it makes it cinema, right? I mean, I love plays. You obviously have a lot of history in theatre, but this is a movie. This is something to experience. There was hope. it kind of gave you a sense of hope that in the midst of all this mud and this rain and these these two characters these two men who had been who'd suffered trauma and and and and tragedy um that you saw this kind of you show this lie this this ray of hope uh in in in that in that visual aspect and uh i i loved all that i love the fish the trout that you know the big trout floating past and his reaction, Daniel's reaction to that and thinking about going back and it just made complete sense, it wasn't something where he thought you know I'm just in a big trout big dead trout floating past, I'm going to go see my son yeah how magically it was done as seamlessly and that's how it all evolved and you know it was such fantastic to be working with him and playing his brother, two brothers that were at loggerheads and they had to go through all these conflicts in order to come to some understanding.

13:07And there's so much spoken and so much unspoken. There's so much history there. This is, you know, Daniel Lewis, this character, has essentially, you know, run away from society for a couple decades. And you go out and, you know, kind of try to... And you didn't know whether that was his reality, you know, the visual things and those images. Yeah. You didn't know whether that was him or... He probably, as Ray, he probably doesn't know the difference between what he's dreaming or what he's a hallucinator of visualizing in his everyday life. That's how bad he's been affected by things. So talk to me a little bit about, I mean, I'm sure you've been asked a lot about Dan D.

13:43Lewis because there's such a mystique about him. He's one of these kind of one-hand actors that we just don't really, so much has been mythologized a little bit about his process, et cetera. I don't know, did you find his working opposite him in close proximity wholly different than you've experienced with other actors? Is it a much different kind of immersive experience or not? Yeah. Yes, it is. It's a different experience working with Daniel and, of course, two other actors. I mean, we all have our techniques or I don't know if you can call them techniques. It's not something you really learn.

14:18You learn what's best for you and how to approach a thing. Nobody can tell you how to do it or recommend how to do it. You find your own way. because you know I went to drama school and that was great and I learned a hell of a lot at drama school but in the end you're on your own and that's it and you invent your own kind of approach you think what's best for me how can I make this guy how I want to convince an audience that I am this person and and I have my own approach it's slightly haphazard and it changes for every role I play I don't have any particular method that I use whereas Daniel seems to have have you know very kind of settled but very strong views of a strong technique only known to himself of course you know and and that's good because and it's very focused and as you would imagine I mean there's a lot being said and he's a method and and he is and I think that's you know we all know that but he said it's a it's an interest to to be working alongside him and see how he how he paces and times are seen especially those two big monologues that were very epic kind of monologues you know um dealing with all sorts of trauma and and psychological issues that he suffered over the years and to see how he paced that over you know 10 minutes or something you know with 12 pages of dialogue you know in in one go, and to bring up the highs and the lows, then he brings it back to a silence, then he has an outburst, then he's laughing hysterically.

15:56To see that, because I didn't have many lines in there, I only had about three lines, so I was just sat there all afternoon. Acting is reacting. But watching it, I think it was fantastic, yeah. You got the best seat in the house. Yeah, and that's him, and he's very, I mean, he's totally engrossed in his part, and also the film around him, you know, he's not a selfish actor. I think he brings everyone in. But, you know, first and foremost, it's what his belief, his conviction that is quite so admirable. Well, he talks about it in the same way you do, which is like that's just the only way he knows how to do it.

16:32And it's not for everybody, but like he doesn't, he can't sell himself on it any other way. So like what's good for him isn't necessarily good for everybody. It's just what it is, what it is. I mean, I love, you know, it's like you can't think of anything else. You know, it's like if you play a musical instrument, you can't be a piano or whatever, and you're totally engrossed in that piece of music. You can't be thinking about anything. That's all it is, that just channel. And that's what happens when you're acting. It depends how quickly you snap out of it. I'm pretty good, you know, with snapping out of things.

17:07I don't like to carry it around with me. I like to go on some fish and chips. and you know, some of the light on telling police interrogations and stuff like that. But I can get back into it, you know, but we're all on different levels. We all have our approaches and none of them what you should do or what you shouldn't do. It's up to you, you know, have you.

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20:52All right, enough about Daniel. I just want to talk about Sean Bean because your career is a remarkable man. I mean, like, you know, we've already alluded a little bit. I mean, you talked about the recent role, relatively recent roles that I think both of those earned you BAFTAs, by the way. And, like, I mean, you've lived a bunch of different lives as an actor. I mean, someone can walk down the street and show a reference or The Rings or Game of Thrones or they might reference, you know, these character dramas. That must be such a source of pride for you. You've been doing this a minute. and you know it's easy to get typecast it's easy to go down one lane and somehow through luck perseverance or whatever here you sit today yes pretty extraordinary yes oh good thank you yeah i mean it is you know i'm glad that i've been able to diversify and play different roles that contrast with each other and there was a point where i was playing a lot of bad guys and now we're playing them very well you know i must admit this is the albert rickman yeah yeah Yeah, you know, I did, well, there's quite a few roles I played.

21:55And the better you play the roles, the more convincing you are in those bad guy roles, the more they want to cast you as bad guy. You can't play, you know, we don't want him for the lead guy who's romantic and who's making jokes and stuff. He's just wanting to kill people and torture them and stuff like that. He's so good at it. We can't deny him that. But he's going to die at the end, yeah. It's the bingo card, unfortunately, yeah. And you can get into that, you know, And then there came a point where I wasn't really getting much else. And then the series called Sharp came along, where I played a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, and that changed things around.

22:29But then after that, I'd played that character for so long that I didn't have much. There was a lot of lulls in my career where I thought, I wonder what's going to happen next. And I was just sat around not doing anything. Is that right? For quite some time, yeah. Were there times you thought about giving up? No, no, I thought that at all. I had no faith in myself. I've got faith in myself. You've got to do. Actors, we're all a little bit paranoid on occasions. We're all a bit insecure. But one thing that does keep us secure and confident is the fact that we think we can act and we can play characters and convince an audience that we're real people.

23:06It's fascinating to hear you say that, though, because, I mean, like, that's not where you came from. Like, you didn't come from, like, an artistic family necessarily that, like, imagined this kind of life for you. and yet you had the certitude relatively early. Have you kind of come to any conclusions about where this passion came from? Was it early validation? Was it something external? Was there an actor or a film that inspired you? No, I remember, because none of my family were very hot tea. I remember I won a resort in England called Blackpool. and it's called Blackpool Tower. It's a bit rough and red in there, but we used to go there every year, my mum and dad and my sister, and I think I was about nine.

23:54And for some reason, popularity, what is it, where you just stand on the stage at a talent show? Sure. And I must have done some impressions of somebody, and I won a big bag of marshmallows, and I think I was second or third. That's all we want in life, a big bag of marshmallows. yeah and i was like that and i was and that and then from there and then uh i don't know where it came from and then it and i never thought about it since it's only about a few years ago i remember and uh and so but and then i wanted to be an artist i was always interested i was always quite good at art at school i won prizes and stuff like that and i tried to pursue that career and that didn't work and i just got interested in acting because i was in an art course and there's drama course in the same building and i just crisscrossed and went into that and i knew that i wanted to be an actor but my mother there's no kind of um uh family connections in terms of art and acting or anything but my mother was oh and she still is a brilliant storyteller you know she could tell you about something that happened up the street with you know doreen and albert and then they came down and it engrossed you in this story about gossip sometimes and stuff like that and then about relating a film and she says let me tell you about this film because I used to go and then by the time she got into a few minutes she was going like that she was such a great story she's a great storyteller and maybe that's where some of it comes from her belief in the kind of characters that she was playing at the time and the voices she did so it's not the conventional way But it is a way that I remember.

25:42RADA must have been the big shift. I mean, to get into RADA, this esteemed, obviously, institution, you don't get in there without some talent. Did that validate you? Did that kind of like... I don't know. Well, you can tell me better than me. Yeah, but generally speaking, yeah. Talk to me a little bit about those early days there. I mean, were you... I don't know who your contemporaries were. I mean, I'm doing the math. Like, is Branagh around? Yeah. Ralph Fiennes around. Kenneth Branagh was in the year above me. I remember him doing Hamlet there. He was excellent. You know, at RADA. He played Hamlet.

26:20We all went to see him. And then he left to do a drama in, I don't know if it was called Billy or something, set in Northern Ireland. He went to do that. He left drama school because he was so sought after. and there's a girl called Janet McTeer who's a lovely woman and we were always paired together because she's quite tall and I was quite tall at the time I think I've shrunk a bit and I've worked with her since so she was wonderful an actor called James Wilbey who was in a lot of films in the 80s and 90s and quite a few on the shore there was a lot of contemporary but not as many as you would think, you know.

27:04But at the time, we were all together. We all learnt a lot. And it was very hands-on then. There was no written work. It was all just sheer acting. Get on your feet. Get up in front of everybody and show us what you can do. They were the most terrifying nights. You know, stand up and entertain. You can do anything, but you've got to do it for three minutes and entertain. And you're just like, oh, and do what? And do what? You just got to invent something. And then you had to stand up and do two songs, a contemporary song. I sang Jack the Knife and Mr. Connelly was on the piano. And you had to do it in front of all your class.

27:44So everybody's having a few drinks before. Oh, my God. Have you felt that kind of fear since? That sounds horrifying. No, but it's a good, it was good because it threw you right in at the deep end. And you just had to do it. And I loved that, you know, and I felt great afterwards. So rather than kind of gradually getting there, They just plunge you in. And then you felt liberated. And you thought, I know what I said. Oh, no, I could have done that. I could do something else, you know. And it was so hands-on. It was so good, the practical work at RADA. I've got so many fond memories of that place.

28:15And it really helped me a lot in my career. So before we get into, like, when I look at the 90s, I start to think of some of the Hollywood stuff and Sharp happens. But even before then, you're in a lot of theater, I think, in the 80s. you're probably starting to do a bunch of auditioning for film I think this is around when, correct me if I'm wrong you do go up for Bond before GoldenEye for the earlier Yeah, I didn't go up for it, there was talk of it me playing Bond, but it never came to anything and then GoldenEye came out of the blue a little bit So you didn't do an audition early on for the previous Bond No, no Got it No, it was all of it, yeah, yeah I mean, I was only about 32, a bit young for Bond and they went for Pierce Brosnan It was great.

28:58All right, so we'll get to GoldenEye in a sec, but first, I think the first time I saw you on screen was probably Patriot Games. Yeah. Which is a great movie. Philip Noyce, Harrison Ford, Lewis Powers, Tom Clancy. Those were bestsellers. Do you have fond memories of being part of that? Yeah, that was the first big film. I did a film before that with Mike Figgis, a great director, Mike, and a lovely guy. and that i did i think go stormy monday with melanie griffith and tommy lee jones and stink who's my boss in that film yeah and and that was like in 1987 but then gold and i uh uh no i'm sorry patriot games came a few years after that and that was the first big film you know a studio film where i got to play uh you know a supporting role you know like second lead in a way to harrison Ford and I couldn't believe it when I got that part myself and another actor had to go over and they fly you to LA to audition and that's quite terrifying in a studio and you're just doing the part and then you don't find out for a few days sometime later and I got the part and I was overjoyed I thought I'm working with Harrison Ford in a fucking big film You didn't show you got a scar out of that experience too you got scarred by Harrison?

30:19Yeah, yeah, I did, yeah. It was just, they never knew how, they couldn't figure out how to kill me at the end, you know. And so they used to fly nearly every weekend back to L.A. from London. Let's try another way to kill them. Yeah, we were in a swimming pool underwater at one of the studios and he'd drown me and hash my head in. We had a scuba diving kit. Then they did something else to me. And then in the end, they flew me back and they decided to kill me on the boat, you know, on the boat. And during the fight, we had a fight at the last scene, and a fight between me and Harrison Ford, and he had a big boat hook, and it was really slippery, and there were wind machine and the blankets of rain coming back.

31:00And I think he just slipped, and he caught me with his boat hook right across here, this eye. And you kind of don't feel it at first, you know what I mean? Especially when it was all that cold and rain, and I didn't realise how bad it went. but I had about 35 stitches inside and out, you know. And then the next day, I think I had a day off next day, and they were just filming, just from that side. You know, I said, no, no, I can see it. Turn the light a bit, Sean. No, it's all right. That was the day we found Sean Bean had a side, the one that's not ripped apart. And it stayed with me ever since.