The rough with the smooth

 

Source: Daily Mail

March 3, 2007 Saturday

The rough with the smooth
SEAN BEAN's screen image as a hard man has carried over into his private life.

Perhaps, he tells DAVID THOMAS, that's because even after three marriages

he still just doesn't understand women

 

 

Click on the thumbnails to see larger pictures. (Initial scans by Govi - thanks!)

 

A few years ago I interviewed the actress Samantha Bond when she was

appearing opposite Sean Bean in a stage production of Macbeth. She showed

me a swelling on her upper lip. 'Look, that's a blood-blister from overzealous

kissing,' she said, almost purring with pride and contentment.' It's absolutely

for real. This is a very passionate Macbeth.'

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Samantha had not yet told her husband how she came

by her war wound. Nor had she informed the perpetrator, Sean Bean. 'I thought

he'd go, "Oh dear." You see, Sean's a very, very nice man and he'd just worry

about it. And I don't want not to be kissed passionately.'

 

Millions of women would understand. If they were getting paid to smooch an

actor who specialises in high-testosterone hunkdom - swashing and buckling

as the hero of Sharpe, fighting orcs as Boromir in The Lord Of The Rings,

playing an SAS hero in Bravo Two Zero and a grizzled paratrooper in his new

film Outlaw - the last thing they'd want is for him to hold back. So I tell Bean,

'You kissed Samantha Bond so hard you gave her blisters.' He frowns.

 

'Really?' he says, trying to work out if I'm sending him up. Then he laughs,

'It could have been the other way round, her kissing me. She's a fiery actress!'

Seconds later, just as Samantha had predicted, his second response kicks in.

The laughter is replaced by a note of concern. 'Was she pleased about that?

Was she okay?' Because that's the thing about Sean Bean.

 

What you first see is not quite what you get. Or at least, it's not all there is to him.

Of course, he's not a new man. He's certainly not metrosexual. He's a proper macho

Northern male, 47 years old, 'Beano' to his mates, with attitudes as defiant as his

Sheffield accent, as his three ex-wives could testify. He grew up in a two-bedroom

house on a council estate and went to a comprehensive. His dad Brian ended up

being a partner in a metalworks and driving a Rolls-Royce. 'He never dropped me

off at school in it,' Bean insists. 'I wasn't having that. I always made sure I got

the bus.'

 

But no matter how flash his motor, Brian Bean never moved out of his little house

and Sean (who was christened Shaun) has inherited that same stubborn determination

to remain true to his roots. He's much happier mixing with regular blokes than

showbiz luvvies. 'I was coming down on the train from Sheffield the other day,

after the match [he's an ardent Sheffield United supporter]. There were Manchester

United fans and Tottenham fans. Some Derby fans got on for half-an-hour, all

singing at the back of the train. That's how it should be, mixing together and

having fun. We had a good laugh, a good Saturday night.'

 

He's arrived for a rare interview with his sandy hair unbrushed and his chin dusted

in stubble. Like many actors he's a little smaller than his super-tough screen

image might suggest, not quite six feet tall and by no means heavily built. He's

wearing a pair of jeans that don't look remotely designer, a zip-up cotton

sweatshirt and a dark bomber jacket. When he's shown the selection of cashmere

scarves a stylist has chosen for his portrait session (they've arrived in a carrier

bag done up with a silk bow), pain crosses his features. It's not that he's being

a diva or insisting he's a serious actor who won't lower himself to such trifles.

 

He's just not a cashmere kind of guy.

 

Nor, with his steadfastly blokey image, does he come across as a closet romantic,

which he confirms by launching into the just-passed Valentine's Day as 'rubbish

and just a moneyspinner - a view no doubt shared by his girlfriend-actress Georgina

Sutcliffe.

 

Okay then, I ask, what's the single most romantic thing he's ever done?

 

Bean thinks about it, then we both laugh as he fails to come up with an answer.

'I've done a few but nothing that stands out. You'll have to come back to me

later on that one.' This is the man who is said to have interrupted his honeymoon

with his second wife, Bread actress Melanie Hill, to watch Sheffield United play

York. When I ask if that story's true, he pleads guilty with a grin. 'We spent our

honeymoon on a tour of Yorkshire and it just happened United were playing

quite a lot of other Yorkshire clubs at the time.'

 

I feel it's only fair at this point to make my own confession. I insisted on

postponing my honeymoon for 48 hours so as to be certain of seeing the 1986

World Cup final on TV. Bean nods in manly appreciation. 'There's nothing wrong

with that. You've got to get things in perspective. You've just got to be careful

how you do it, haven't you?'

 

His latest film, Outlaw, tells the story of five men, all abused by violent thugs and

let down by the justice system, who decide to take the law into their own hands

and go looking for revenge. It is shockingly, sickeningly violent at times, as if to

leave the viewer in no doubt that this is the reality of life in a Britain that seems

to be sinking into criminality, violence and anarchy. Outlaw portrays a nation in

which the threat of random, unprovoked attack haunts our streets and in which

the justice system seems to have given up trying to stop, catch or punish the

thugs who wreck innocent people's lives.

 

The film is a low-budget production and Bean took a big pay cut to work on it

because he felt so strongly about its subject matter.

 

When he talks about his role as Danny Bryant, an ex-soldier who comes back

home from Iraq and feels like a stranger in his own country, the jocularity and

laddishness disappear, and are replaced by a quieter, more thoughtful tone.

 

'It's a very thought-provoking piece and when I came out after I first saw it on

screen, I didn't know what to say,' he begins. 'It takes a while for it all to sink

in. It's a film that I think the majority of people in this country will be able to

identify with. At some time or other they've felt powerless or isolated. They've

suffered injustice and there's been nobody there for them. And what do you do

when you can't win? When you do everything you've been told to do, when you

go to the police and you still don't get anywhere? What do you do then?

 

Sometimes it just tips you over the edge.' 'My character is pretty intense. He's

almost going through a nervous breakdown. That's why I like him. He's not one

of these guys who know exactly what they're doing. He has a rage in him and

sometimes he doesn't know where it's going. It comes out and then he regrets

it, like we all do, I suppose.' Bean knows it's easy for directors to typecast him

as a psycho. 'I can do anger. I don't know why and that's the way I prefer it. I

don't want to start asking too many questions.

 

I've got enough stuff going round my head without getting into all that.' But he's

no stranger to violent conflict in his real life, too. As a young man he was fined

Pounds 50 for causing actual bodily harm. 'It was at drama school,' he says.

'Someone had a swing at me so I had a swing at them and I got done for it.'

 

Bean insists, however, that he tries to stay away from trouble. 'I go out of my

way not to put myself in that sort of situation. I play tough parts but I don't

want to live them.' But he adds, 'At the same time, if someone comes up and

gives you a swipe on the back of the head you're going to do something.

 

We've all been in situations where we've thought, "Things can't go on like this."

Are you just going to stand there and get battered, or are you going to stand up

for yourself?'

 

Nick Love, the director of Outlaw, found himself fascinated by the contrast

between the actor he saw in front of his camera and the man he met off set.

 

'Sean's a very reserved man,' says Love.

 

'You could pass him on the street without noticing him because he doesn't stand

out or swagger. But on screen he's transformed into someone much bigger. He's

mesmerising. That's a proper movie star. He likes a pint and likes his football.

But when he talks about work he's incredibly professional.

 

He's very thoughtful, very methodical. He's really read the script and considered it.

 

After shooting, when other people were off drinking, he'd spend time on his own,

thinking about the scenes he had to do the next day.' There is, in other words,

a lot more to Sean Bean than just a cinematic bit of rough.

 

That day I met Samantha Bond, I could hear the sound of a piano coming from

another room. It was Sean Bean, relaxing between rehearsals by playing a bit of

Beethoven and playing it well.

 

'I started learning the piano as a lad with this fellow across the road called Mr

Stone,' he says. 'He was about 85 and it was 50p a lesson.

 

I used to play Beethoven and Chopin, stuff like that. I'd like to get back into it.

You can really lose yourself in it. You have to be totally focused because if you're

not, your fingers just won't function.' Bean is typical of a certain kind of

working-class Northern man who is self-taught and whose gentler side always

comes out at one remove - like all those hard men who breed pigeons or grow

sweet peas. His formal education left him with just two O-levels in English

and art. 'It comes to some people later in life.

 

At school, I wasn't interested in history, geography and maths. I was more

interested in getting to know friends and getting on with my life. Lessons

seemed to get in the way of that.

 

'But after I left I had a craving to learn. I found myself in bookshops, museums

and libraries. I just had a desire to find out about things like literature, plays,

Homer and the Greeks and music especially.'

 

He was working at his father's firm and studying welding and metallurgy at

Rotherham College of Arts and Technology when he wandered into a drama

class by mistake and discovered that he had a natural gift for acting, a stage

presence that cannot be taught. In 1981 he won a scholarship to the Royal

Academy of Dramatic Art. By then, he had already married his first wife,

hairdresser Debra James. 'We were just two young kids who fell in love,

but it never worked out,' she later said. 'I'm very happy for him now.' As his

career flourished, Bean's private life became more complicated. He and

second wife Melanie Hill had two daughters, Lorna, now 19, and Molly, 15,

before splitting in 1997.

 

Within three months he had married again, to his Sharpe co-star (and onscreen

wife) Abigail Cruttenden. The marriage produced another daughter, Evie,

seven, but lasted less than three years before the couple divorced in 2000.

 

'I don't think you ever really understand women,' he says, when I ask why

he found it so hard to stay married. 'You never really know how things are

going to turn out, you have to live day by day. I just like the fact that I'm

fortunate to be in a situation where my life changes quite a lot. Sometimes

they might not be great changes, sometimes they are, but at least it's

never unexciting. There's always something happening.'

 

Today, Bean's strongest feelings seem to be towards his daughters. Painfully

aware that his career has taken him away from his family too often in the

past, he now seems determined to make up for his failings as a father.

'Kids are a great leveller,' he says. 'They put things into perspective. I'm

pretty easygoing as a dad. You have to give people a bit of leeway and

let them make their own way through life.'

 

When I ask how he spends his spare time at home in north London, he grins,

'I'm tidying up after my girls most of the time. I like a bit of gardening, and

doing things in the house. I'm in the process of redecorating at the moment,

and I love that. It keeps me fit and I find it very therapeutic: it takes my

mind off doing films.' Still, Bean needs to earn a living, so when a good part

comes along, he grabs it. In a few weeks he starts shooting a film version

of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance. 'It's a great part,' he says with

genuine enthusiasm.

 

'I'm playing Lord Illingworth. He's a gentleman, very dapper and charismatic

but a bit of a rascal. I'm very fond of Oscar Wilde's work and, having played

a series of psychotic characters, it'll be quite refreshing to do something

different like this.'

 

Since he's about to play the seducer in a romantic melodrama, it seems only

right to end the conversation as we began, pondering the mystery of men

and women. 'Thank God we're so different,' says Bean. 'That's the excitement.

 

Yeah' he gives one last, unshaven grin, 'That's what makes them so irresistible.'

 

Outlaw is released in cinemas on Friday.

 

A face in the life of...

Husband, father, fighter in countless on-and off-screen roles, Sean Bean has

become an icon of rugged masculinity. Here are the highlights:

 

 

Click on the thumbnail to see larger picture. (Initial scans by Govi - thanks!)

 

 

 

 

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