Quotes from Sean Bean

I always get nervous before a scene.

Lord of the Rings was something I always wanted to do. I read the book when I was about 25, and I was always hoping if it was ever made into a feature film that I would be involved in some way. And then I finally got it, and I was over the moon. It was fantastic news.

I had no intention of being an actor. I was quite good at it. I was pretty capable at other things but never any good at anything.

For some reason, the parts I play, like Boromir or Ned Stark, have a life online long afterwards. I keep seeing - what do you call them - memes?

It's strange coming back to Northern Ireland, but it feels like a home away from home.

I think the amount of production value that was put into 'Game of Thrones' was incredible, and it's unlike anything I've seen on any other production, including 'The Lord of the Rings.'

I sort of leave the character at the end of the day. I don't carry anything around with me - no excess baggage or unnecessary thoughts. I think it's too exhausting to do that. To put things into perspective - your work is your work, and your leisure time is something else.

When I first started shooting 'Sharpe,' back in the early 1990s, I'd kiss my two elder daughters goodbye at the end of August - Evie wasn't even born then - and I wouldn't see them again until Christmas. That was tough. They were hard times.

I always like to do something different, something unusual, stray off the path a bit.

The stigma of movie actors doing television is gone now.

I always prefer to work intensively on something and then move on to something else. I prefer not to get stuck in something that takes five or six years of my life.

Every actor wants to find a piece of work that's innovative and powerful and moving.

It took a while to adapt to life in London, but six months into my course at RADA, I felt very at home.

I did a film called 'Patriot Games' with Harrison Ford, and we actually shot three different versions of my death. And they settled on the third.

I never try and play a bad guy to be bad and to be brutal and to be nasty and vicious, because I think you're going to be very cliche there. You know, you've got to find the truth in that character and what he believes in. It just happens that, you know, he's wrong.

I've been into lots of auditions, and I'm sure I've lost a lot of jobs through that because I'm pretty dreadful at reading.

I'd like to act as a fair, easy-going, kind man at some point.

It's important to enjoy who you are and to appreciate things around you.

There's only so long you can play the silent type standing in the background. 'GoldenEye' was good for that. I was the villain: James Bond was doing all the heavy lifting. I liked that.

I sometimes find that playing the bad guy, or villains, or psychopaths tend to be much more psychologically rewarding. And you can really push it, you can push the limits, and get away with it.

I used to play a lot of villains. You have to break out of it, and I did.

006 was such an interesting character and the film really explored his friendship with Bond and how it all went wrong, so it was a very personal journey for both characters.

Lord of the Rings was just so much enjoyment. It was over about the space of a year that I was filming. It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done, so emotional.

My family thought the fascination with acting was just another fad.