Sean Bean is alive and well and turns 58 today. We have watched him die on the big screen (and the small screen) for several decades now. While he was grinding away in the UK doing TV along the lines of the Sharpe’s series of telemovies, and small parts in arthouse features from Stormy Monday to How To Get Ahead in Advertising, before he slowly rose in popularity in the USA after a string of high profile movies such as Patriot Games, alongside 007 in GoldenEye, and his supporting but memorable role in the star-studded Ronin before landing Boromir in Lord of the Rings and headlining the iconic first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
It is a running meme that he dies in every movie or TV show he makes an appearance, and while (obviously) that is not entirely accurate, well, there is some truth to the internets collective sense of humour. He is not the most-dyingist actor out there, and has some way to go to catch Horror icons Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price for being killed on screen. (And surprising to me, the top of the killed-on-screen list was actually the often high-brow, Sir John Hurt.) But considering Bean is in fewer roles and still has presumably 25 years of his career left if he choose to work to the age of those other fine thespians, he could catch them.
Also, if are so inclined to do the math, Sean Bean dies across 32% across all of his TV and film credits, which, according to The Nerdist’s 2014 analysis, is actually the highest percentage, even though the older, more prolific guys have him beat with the raw numbers in the chart below.
