Most male actors consider being branded a sex symbol an insult
to
their serious acting aspirations and a public embarrassment.
Not so
for Sean Bean who, at the somewhat advanced age of 45, will be
happy
as Larry to have come second in a new poll to find Britain's
sexiest
actor.
Sheffield-born former welder
Sean, a generation older than the
poll's victor - twentysomething pretty boy Orlando Bloom, with
whom
he co-starred in Lord of the Rings - is delighted with his heart-
throb status and the subsequent attention he gets from the opposite
sex.
"It's nice that women
feel that about me. I'm certainly not going
to complain," laughs the single but thrice-divorced father
of three,
who is fully aware of why women find his rugged, tattoed appearance
so attractive. "I don't have any problems with women seeing
me as
their ideal bit of 'rough'. Why would I?"
Sean, who beat Jude Law -
almost universally accepted as the
nation's most swoon-inducing actor - into fifth place in the
poll by
Skymovies.com, first came to female viewers' attention 12 years
ago
when he memorably disrobed to play seductive gamekeeper Mellors
in a
TV version of Lady Chatterley's Lover. His enthusiastic and
highly
visible sex scene won him a rear-of-the-year award.
Unlike Jude, who dislikes
being cast as celluloid eye candy, Sean,
who stars with fellow heart-throb Brad Pitt in the hit film Troy,
has no problem with being appreciated for his physical attributes
and is happy to take his clothes off on screen or, indeed, stage
(he
spent much of a recent West End foray as Macbeth topless).
"Chatterley had a big
impact on my career, it got me noticed,"
admits Sean, who has two daughters with his second wife, former
Bread actress Melanie Hill, and one with his third, Abigail
Cruttenden, who played his screen wife in the TV series Sharpe.
"It's one of the roles
I'll always look back on fondly because it
was a good part and the story was great: it was a classy, classic
tale perfectly told."
The story that generated the
above report:
Sky Movies has ranked the
top 10 sexiest British actors, with "Lord of the Rings"
pretty boy
Orlando Bloom, 27, topping
the list. In second was another "Lord of the Rings"
hunk, albeit
an older, scruffier one: Sean
Bean, 45. Perennial fave Hugh Grant, 43, placed third, followed
by
perennial full-frontal flasher
Ewan McGregor, 33; the ubiquitous Jude Law, 31, and "Batman
Begins" eye-candy Christian
Bale, 30. Rounding out the top 10 were some lesser-known
heartthrobs, at least in the
States, with Ray Winstone, 47, ("Cold Mountain") in
seventh,
followed by Angelina Jolie's
ex Jonny Lee Miller, 31; Jason Statham, 31 ("The Transporter");
and Jennifer Connelly's blond
hubby Paul Bettany, 33 ("Master and Commander").