How Many Times Has Sean Bean Died on Screen? A Look At His On-Screen Fatalities (2024)

From Game of Thrones to Lord of the Rings, Sean Bean’s character’s survival has become a topic worth discussing. When explored, there is a reported number of times the actor has succumbed on-screen.

Sean Bean (Credits- YouTube/BBC/Time Trailer)

Sean Bean’s name is synonymous with a diverse set of movies and TV shows, but all have one common facet– he always dies. The British actor’s wide-spanning career has been an illustrious path of great recognition, yet his fate on-screen hardly deviated until recently.

From Game of Thrones to Lord of the Rings, Sean Bean’s character’s survival has become a topic worth discussing. When explored, there is a reported number of times the actor has succumbed on-screen.

How many times has Sean Bean died on-screen?

Sean Bean, 65, is a force to be reckoned with in the film industry but his high acclaim seldom protects him in the movies. According to reports, the actor has been killed off in 25 different movies and TV shows.

Some of his more famous deaths were getting beheaded as Ned Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones; killed by arrows as warrior Boromir in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and in 2001’s Don’t Say A Word, Bean’s character is buried alive, per The Daily Mail.

However, the British thespian’s first on-screen death was in the 1986 film, Caravaggio and in 1992’s Patriot Games starring Harrison Ford, where he is quashed by an anchor.

In 2023, Sean Bean hit a new milestone after he was killed off for the 25th time. BBC’s World on Fire featured him as pacifist Douglas Bennett trying to escape the perils of World War II. Though he survived Season 1, much to the fans’ surprise, his sudden disappearance in Season 2 left many irked. With that, Bean’s death curse continues.

His long list of on-screen deaths also includes 1995’s Golden Eye, where he played a villain who collided with a satellite; was shot point-blank in 2002’s Equilibrium, fell from a cliff pushed by a stampede of cows in 1991’s The Field.

Sean Bean turned down roles where he dies

After much of his acting career revolved around dead characters, Sean Bean felt it was a given to his fans. The #Don’tkillseanbean movement sparked in 2014 with even the actor himself sporting a T-shirt with the hashtag. But we know it’s not worked.

Finally addressing the matter, Bean told The Sun that he had rejected roles where he was set to die later on, to try and break the death spell. “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,” the Sharpe star said in 2019.

Though little has changed, Bean was once able to negotiate his character’s death in one project. When told that he would die, the BAFTA winner bargained it to getting badly injured but ultimately surviving the movie.

Some directors have managed to make an exception and give what the people wanted. Bean lived through till the end of 2004’s National Treasure. Speaking of the same, the actor admitted in a 2022 The Guardian interview that the approach has changed because of his “name recognition.”

Other films like Troy, Silent Hill, and Percy Jackson, and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief also protect Bean’s characters from dying.

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