Actor Sean Bean has spoken about the fact he ends up being bumped off in almost every big role he has on the big screen

Sean is now starring in gritty BBC drama This Is Our City(Image: James Stack//BBC)

He has died up to 25 times on screen in what feels like every role he has ever been cast in. And Sean Bean’s regular killings in film and TV and film have sparked memes and a hashtag #DontKillSeanBean on social media.

But actor Sean, 65, insists he doesn’t mind too much, at least at first anyway. He told Radio Times: “I was playing some great characters, juicy, nasty pieces of work, and I thought I’d rather play them and die than play a mundane character that lives.

But it came to a point with all the memes and I thought, ‘Maybe I should stop dying as much.’”

Memorable deaths for Sean on screen include in Lord of the Rings where he perished as Boromir by being shot by crossbow bolts, Game of Thrones where he was decapitated as Ned Stark, and James Bond film Goldeneye where he was dropped from an antenna to plunge to his end.

Sean with wife Ashley at the BAFTAs(Image: Getty)

Sean is back on screen now in new drama This Is Our City, where hopefully he will last through the full eight parts on BBC1.

Taking place in the heart of Liverpool and captured on the city’s very streets, the gritty series features Sean Bean as the formidable gang boss Ronnie Phelan, with James Nelson-Joyce as his mate Michael Kavanagh, Hannah Onslow playing Michael’s other half Diana Williams, Jack McMullen portraying Ronnie’s lad Jamie Phelan, and Julie Graham as the mobster’s missus Elaine.

Finding Ronnie’s on screen anger won’t be tricky according to Sean. He explained: “I’ve never really seen it as a problem to perform anger or distress. I can snap into that quite easily. We’ve all seen people, our family or friends, turning on a sixpence, going into a rage; it’s shocking and something you always remember.”

Away from the cameras the proud Sheffield star is now very much down south and has moved out of London, spending the majority of time in Somerset when not on set somewhere, which will surprise some fans.

Married five times and with three daughters he is happy away from the spotlight with wife Ashley Moore, who he wed in 2017.

“It was accidental, really. I’d lived in London since drama school, and I just realised my girls had grown up and got married and were having kids,” he said.

I thought, ‘I don’t know what I’m really here for.’ Then Ashley saw this quirky little place in Somerset, with a lot of trees and water and land. I find it very relaxing, there’s nothing there, just the sound of birds and a stillness. It allows me to recharge my batteries, get rid of the detritus of the last part that might still be hanging around.”

* The full interview with Sean Bean is in the new issue of Radio Times and online now.