Age: 67
male
Shaun Mark Bean (born 17 April 1959) is an English actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Bean made his professional debut in a theatre production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983. Retaining his Yorkshire accent, he first found mainstream success for his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in the ITV series Sharpe, which originally ran from 1993 to 1997. Bean's film roles include Patriot Games (1992), GoldenEye (1995), Ronin (1998), Don't Say a Word (2001), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), Equilibrium (2002), National Treasure (2004), Troy (2004), Flightplan (2005), North Country (2005), The Island (2005), Silent Hill (2006), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Black Death (2010), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and The Martian (2015). His television roles include the BBC anthology series Accused, Broken, Game of Thrones, and the ITV historical drama series Henry VIII and Legends. As a voice actor, Bean has been featured in the video games The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Sid Meier's Civilization VI, and the feature films Wolfwalkers and Mummies among others. Bean has also been the main voice over for O2 and their adverts for over 20 years having originally taken the job in 2002. In 2022, Bean won the British Academy Television Award as Leading Actor in Time, a BBC One drama.
He was born Norrin Radd on the planet Zenn-La, part of an extremely long-lived and technologically advanced humanoid race which had created a worldwide utopia devoid of crime, disease, hunger, poverty, and want of any kind. His father named him after revered scientist Norrin Konn, the man responsible for raising Zenn-La from barbarism to utopia.[26] Norrin Radd's mother Elmar, ill-suited to this stifling environment, eventually killed herself.[27] Urged on by his atypically ambitious father Jartran, Norrin was raised as a grimly intellectual youth, encouraged to seek knowledge, advancement and achievement rather than the aimless hedonism which had come to dominate Zenn-Lavian society; however, a disgraced Jartran would later commit suicide himself after he was accused of idea theft [28]. [29] Despite his lifelong lover Shalla-Bal, Norrin grew into a restless soul who longed for challenge and struggle, immersing himself in histories of Zenn-La's adventurous ancient past.[30] Norrin's life changed forever when a menacing alien spacecraft pierced Zenn-La's long-neglected defense systems. transforming Radd into a silver-skinned, cosmic-powered super-being[30] patterned after an adolescent fantasy plucked from Norrin's memories.[31] Known thereafter as the Silver Surfer because of the silvery flying board he rode, Radd departed Zenn-La with Galactus.[30]
