TV star who always dies on screen perishes yet again… for 26th time
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Spoilers ahead for This City is Ours.
The only certainty we have in life is that, no matter the role, Sean Bean will tragically die onscreen. And just like clockwork, he’s done it again.
Since starting his career in the 80s, the 65-year-old Hollywood actor has been cruelly taken from us not once, not twice but 26 different times, in various brutal (fictional) manners.
The trend kicked off in the 1986 movie, Carravagio, when his character Ranuccio had his throat slashed. Oof. After that, the 90s proved deadly for Sean including being crushed by a satellite dish in James Bond movie GoldenEye.
And who can forget his tragic demise in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring when Boromir was shot to death by arrows?
He’s frozen to death,been shot, shot again, and, of course, decapitated while playing Eddard ‘Ned’ Stark in the epic fantasy series Game of Thrones.
He is perhaps best known for dying as Boromir in Lord of the Rings (Picture: New Line Cinema)He went on a dying hiatus during most of the 2010s but in recent years his characters have once more started dying off including in the BBC series World on Fire.
And even in season four of Snowpiercer where he was presumed dead… he returned only to die again using a poisoned cigarette (although viewers could be getting duped again).
And his little-known stint in the manga adaptation, Knights of the Zodiac, brings the total up once again.
So, it seems a rough deal that he dies once more in BBC’s new gangland drama, This City is Ours, touted as ‘Liverpool’s Sopranos’.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t make it past episode two in This City is Ours (Picture: BBC/Left Bank Pictures/James Stack) He is tragically stabbed to death (Picture: BBC/Left Bank Pictures/James Stack)In the show, he plays a mob boss Ronnie Phelan, who is eyeing retirement. Sadly, he never gets to hang up his hat as just two episodes in (yes, two!) he is killed by his protege Michael (James Nelson-Joyce).
The early exit means six more episodes without the Time star.
This latest death is a blow to the online fan campaign #dontkillseanbean, which Sean acknowledged in a recent interview with Radio Times.
‘I realised there were quite a lot of deaths without anybody needing to tell me. It was obvious,’ he said.
Then added: ‘But 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.” But it doesn’t bother me any more. And, you know, I’m not really dead!’
Sean has previously said he has avoided roles where his character dies, but as of late has embraced it (Picture: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)It seems he’s evolved in his view since 2019 when he seemed to actively be rejecting roles that would see him dead.
‘I’ve turned down stuff. I’ve said, “They know my character’s going to die because I’m in it!” I just had to cut that out and start surviving, otherwise, it was all a bit predictable.
‘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”,’ he joked to The Sun at the time.
His co-star Laura Aikman had nothing but glowing words for Sean in an interview with Metro.
He takes ‘time to come out of his shell’ but is ‘lovely, really gentle, very funny and generous,’ she said.
Then added: ‘He’s an absolutely brilliant actor and I’ve been an admirer of his work for years.’
Fans are already raving about the series which has been called by some as ‘one of the best crime dramas in years’.
And it has done wonders for Liverpool’s economy, boosting it by £9,000,000 after it received investment from Liverpool City Region’s Production Fund (LCR), its city council confirmed.
‘By backing projects like This City Is Ours, alongside the world-class talent and infrastructure we’ve got here, we’re making sure our region isn’t just part of the conversation—we’re leading it by working to cement the region as the “Hollywood of the North”,’ Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region said.
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