Sean Bean

“I have gotten a couple of letters meant for Mr. Bean aka Rowan Atkinson. These letters would say things like, 'You're so funny, you make me laugh, with your big rubbery face,' and I would say, 'You can't mean me!'”

“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 put quite a few trees in last autumn. A lot of silver birch and a couple of native trees - just generally doing gardening, putting plants in and hedges in. It takes quite a lot of time and I love it.”

“There's a wealth of literature out there which, hopefully, will be, you know, exploded in the future, and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling, and sort of legendary characters.”

“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.”

“You don't necessarily equate me with humor!”

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

“My days of being an absentee dad are well and truly over.”

“My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, 'I want to be an actor.' They worried it was a waste of time.”

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

“Sometimes all you need is a big leap of faith.”