The Bean Gene Machine

 

 

The Bean Gene Machine

Source: Northern Echo

11 August 2005

Sean Bean is pretty good at playing bad guys but, as he tells Steve Pratt,

his latest villain, the boss of a human cloning insitute, does have some

redeeming features.

Sean Bean may be Hollywood's villain of choice at the moment but the

Yorkshire-born won't have it that his latest bad guy is that much of a mean

machine. He can see the good side of Merrick, who heads a cloning institute

creating doubles to provide spare parts for their real life counterparts in the

$120m futuristic adventure, The Island.

"I think he has his good points," says Bean in his distinctive Sheffield accent,

sitting in a London hotel the day after the London premiere of The Island.

"It depends which way you look at him. To some people, this guy can save

your life or your child's life, and improve the quality of your life. He's a saviour

in some cases and also a bringer of death.

"He brings a lot of misery and suffering to people who believe they will get off

the island."

Those are the clones, led by Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, who

discover the truth and set about escaping, hotly pursued by Merrick's brutal

minions.

Bean made his name as Bernard Cornwall's hero of the Napoleonic Wars in

the title role of the ITV series Sharpe, before becoming a Bond villain in

GoldenEye. Even earlier he'd been nasty, facing up to Harrison Ford as a

terrorist seeking revenge for his brother's death in Patriot Games.

Swashbuckling roles as Boromir in The Lord Of The Rings and as the legendary

Odysseus in the historical epic Troy were followed by a display of villainy in

the Hollywood adventure National Treasure. Still to come is Flightplan

opposite Jodie Foster and the horror thriller, The Dark.

The appeal of The Island lay in the fascinating story with its echoes of Big

Brother and 1984. The cloning aspect is topical, but Bean's feelings on the

subject are undecided. "There are some good things, like stem cell research

helping people in many ways, but it's quite a different story recreating a

whole new person as happens in The Island," he says. "It depends how it's

handled. It's a massive moral dilemma for everyone, for governments, for

religions. They've done these things with horses, dogs and things. It's only a

matter of time before they do it with humans."

Merrick, with his smart suits and good manners, can't be called "an out and

out villain", says the actor. "He's not evil for the sake of it, or malevolent or

spiteful. He thinks he's a pioneer and talks of creating a ward for children to

cure those with leukaemia. He believes in the things he's doing. I don't think

such a thing exists as totally good. We all have our demons and dark

recesses."

A desperate Merrick resorts to violence, trying to kill McGregor's clone. Filming

the final fight between the two men wasn't without problems as they were in

different places, separated by the Atlantic.

"The funny thing is in the scene where I'm trying to strangle him that's me

and a double for Ewan doing it in Los Angeles, and Ewan and a double for me

doing it in London," Bean reveals. "Ewan was appearing in Guys And Dolls in

London and we were reshooting the end in LA, so there was no way we could

do the scene together."

Someone recently bestowed the title of "England's most versatile actor" on

Bean, something that pleases him as he tries to do as many diverse roles as

possible. The films he has awaiting release offer very different parts. "That's

good," he says. "I'm fortunate I have the choice. I can choose what I do to

some extent."

He doesn't rule out a return to Yorkshire to make movies. He's been asked in

the past but plans didn't work out because of prior commitments. "It would be

good to go back to Sheffield and work at the Crucible, and do something

devoted to the area," he says.

But the US is where he's been spending most time of late, playing Americans

in both the horror thriller The Dark and an as-yet-untitled drama in which he

stars with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron. That's meant long periods away from

home, spending eight months of every year in Los Angeles. When he's away,

he misses the general way of life in this country. "I enjoy LA. I like the

weather and it's quite laid back in some ways. Everyone goes to bed early,

which I've started doing, most alarmingly," he says.

Making his first films 20 years ago, he had no idea where it would lead.

"When I started acting and going to drama school in Rotherham, I just

enjoyed the process of acting and the feeling I got from it," he says. "I didn't

look beyond that - just, if I could, get a job as an actor."

His last stage appearance was three years ago in the title role of

Shakespeare's Macbeth in London's West End. There were plans to take the

production to Broadway - "which would have been good" - but they came to

nothing.

Working so much in America means he's been missing watching his beloved

Sheffield United. But he'll be at the match against QPR tomorrow. Other than

that, the usually-busy Bean has nothing else lined up. "I'm not working on

anything, just coming to terms with not having anything to do."

 

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