If Ned Stark were an undercover cop
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for the Season 5 Game of Thrones finale and the Season 1 Legends finale.
Years after playing family patriarch Ned Stark in Season 1 of Game of Thrones, Sean Bean still gets approached by strangers mourning the loss of the noble character in the HBO fantasy series.
“Yes, it seems that people aren’t happy about it still. They ask me why I died and I apologize. I tell them that I really didn’t want to die, it’s the writers,” laughs Bean.
Bean has not been idle since the death of his character. He is one of the stars, along with Matt Damon, of the Ridley Scott-directed summer blockbuster The Martian. And he returns as deep undercover operative Martin Odum in Season 2 of TV drama Legends on Bravo, which debuts Wednesday at 9 p.m.
In person, Bean is so soft-spoken it’s hard to associate him with some of the outsized characters he plays. You strain to hear his words. But the fashionably cut suit cannot hide that craggy Ned Stark visage, the lines on his face forever foreshadowing some penultimate Greek tragedy to come.
No matter how many roles he plays, the defining one seems to be of the beheaded Stark, whose family has gone on to victory and mostly tragedy in subsequent seasons. His bastard son Jon Snow (Kit Harington), meanwhile, was the most recent shocking death in the family at the end of Season 5. But even Bean is unconvinced that his TV son could really be dead.
“I doubt they’ve really killed him off. I think they could possibly resurrect him in some form or other,” Bean said.
If his GOT character were still alive, Bean would make sure to tell his ill-fated offspring, “Be careful who you trust. Be strong. But overall, be yourself,” he said.
Being yourself is not the strong suit of Bean’s latest character, an undercover agent working for the FBI’s Division of Covert Operations. The series was developed by Homeland producer Howard Gordon and based on the book Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation by Robert Littell. The “legend” moniker refers to the fictional background created by agents as they go undercover. It’s a role, that as an actor, Bean has been preparing for most of his working life.
“There is a very close similarity between acting and being in Legends,” says Bean. “He lives those characters though, so he’s taking it a step further. I can go home.”
Season 1 had Bean playing everything from a journalist to an arms dealer, although co-star Ali Larter may have had the heavier load, moving from banker to stripper in one episode.
The TNT series also stars Morris Chestnut and Amber Valletta. Valletta, who plays Odum’s wife, was shot in the cliffhanger Season 1 finale.
Season 2 picks up with Odum struggling to cope with the shooting while on the run from his own operatives.
“This time it’s much darker, much grittier. There is lots of intrigue, very John le Carré,” says Bean. “Last year we were putting down roots and trying to find a structure. This is a little more fleshed out and vibrant.”
The new season is set in Europe. And Bean says it feels like a completely different production.
“It’s set in Prague; you have Chechen rebels, the Russian mafia, the CIA all intersecting. It’s also something of a retrospective, taking you back 15 years to explain why he is the person he is.”
Given that the producers are hoping for more seasons to come, it’s probably a lock to expect that Bean will survive Season 2. This is despite the fact that Bean is famous for being killed in dramatic fashion, whether being squashed by an antenna as Agent 006 in GoldenEye, stabbed with a boat anchor in Patriot Games, or slain with arrows while being used as a human dartboard in Lord of the Rings.
TNT’s advertising campaign to promote the series featured the #DontKillSeanBean hashtag, which was parodied on the Funny or Die website.
“I don’t quite know how it all happened, but trust me, after all these years, I’m happy to be alive in this one,” says Bean.
The Many Faces of Sean Bean
In the Bravo series Legends, Sean Bean plays Martin Odum, a deep undercover FBI agent who assumes different identities. In honour of Legends, the Star examines the different roles the 56-year-old English actor has immersed himself in over the years and his thoughts on each character.
Eddard (Ned) Stark (Game of Thrones)
“A noble man. A man of courage and values. In the midst of mayhem he kept true to himself. But he was finally defeated by corruption.”
Alec Trevelyan, Agent 006 (GoldenEye)
“I always regarded him as a quite decent chap who got sidelined and working for the wrong kind of person. But he could have been as heroic as bond himself.”
Boromir (The Lord of The Rings)
“A good man that fell prey to the power of the ring as most of the humans did, but he redeemed himself with a hell of a journey.”
Sean Miller (Patriot Games)
“He was quite a piece of work. Driving force behind that he was a freedom fighter who was out for revenge.”
Richard Sharpe (Sharpe TV movies)
“He rose from the ranks. His mother was a prostitute and whore. He was raised in the gutter. But he became a good scrapper, fighter. A good man.”
Mitch Henderson (The Martian)
“Quite a fastidious kind of guy. Very quick on the ball. He’s bringing back his men at all cost. It’s a moral crusade for him.”
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2015/11/13/if-ned-stark-were-an-undercover-cop.html
