Sean Bean is an expert in cinematic death, particularly his own. He's died enough times on TV and in films that it's basically become one of the most reliable memes on the internet. Yet out of every demise he's met on the screen, Bean has one that he favors above the rest, and it's a pretty damned fine one at that. Out of all of his iconic characters, it's Boromir from the Lord of The Rings saga that he finds to be the best.
With a good portion of The Fellowship of The Ring seeing Boromir trying to procure the ring, all in the name of his kingdom's safety, it's his final moments that make him a true hero of Tolkienian lore. Sacrificing his life to indirectly allow Frodo the opportunity to escape with the ring, the Steward-prince of Gondor was shot down with multiple arrows by the Orcs hunting the Fellowship. Which makes Sean Bean's reason for playing favorites with his death at the hands of director Peter Jackson easy to peg, especially as he cites the following reasoning:
It's my favorite death scene, and I've done a few. You couldn't ask for a more heroic death.
It's easy to kill a character, and it's just as simple to portray someone dying. But to give someone a redemptive and, as he described it to EW, heroic death is something that truly needs to be earned. So obviously, the challenge for an actor like Sean Bean is to play the weakness for power that Boromir has as effectively as the realization that he must atone for his actions. If he went too much in the direction of a sneering baddie, those final moments wouldn't have been as emotional. However, if he wasn't hard enough in his conflict, it becomes a predictable shortcut to an emotional reaction. But with the mix of firm humanity that Bean provided in his performance, it made the final moment seen below all the more iconic. You can watch it for yourself below.
After being crushed by a satellite, shot through a poetry book, and hung with a chain, it's the slings and arrows of Boromir's misfortune in The Fellowship of The Ring that hits him the hardest. We're inclined to agree with him, as the only death that might outweigh his Lord of The Rings demise is his Game of Thrones exit. Though, that's cut from a similar cloth, and Ned Stark doesn't get as heartbreaking a final speech as Boromir did, so Tokien still reigns supreme.
If anyone feels like reviewing the evidence and challenging that claim, you can watch Game of Thrones Season 1 on HBO Go/Now, as well as Blu-ray and DVD; and you've probably got a copy of The Lord of The Rings trilogy in your home video library somewhere.
