Actor Sean Bean has finally decided that enough is enough and is no longer accepting roles where his character dies.
By this point, it's a trope so well associated with the actor that having his character live for longer than a few episodes, or scenes, as the case may be, is a surprise to fans, who have seen his fictional mortal coil come to an end a whopping 500 times.
Now, in an interview with Digital Spy, promoting his latest role on the BBC's World on Fire, where he plays an army veteran, the actor revealed that he's "turned stuff down" because it involved his character's death.
"I found it rather more interesting to play someone who is fractured and slightly broken by his experiences and trying to put on a front for his children and try and hold the family together," Bean explained.
"He's playing a character upon a character with many underlying conflicting moods and feelings about how he should be as a father and how he views the world. He's a quieter man," the 60-year-old continued.
"He's broken and he's just trying to hold on. It's very poignant and very fulfilling to play someone that's not a hero, big and strong, but a man who's hanging on and is afraid. Playing someone who's not necessarily a hero or a villain, but someone who has been affected by war, which is a story in itself."
"And finding out the physical and psychological damage that caused and how that manifests itself in his body language and habits," Bean said.
Watch Game of Thrones win Best Drama Series at the Emmys...As well all know, despite having one of the most important roles in the series, Bean was only in Game of Thrones for one season, and according to the actor, this was a little disappointing as it meant he couldn't explore the deeper layers of Ned Stark's character.
"They told me straight away [that I was going to die]," he recalled. "They'd cast me and Peter Dinklage at the time, but they made it very clear, and I was alright with that. Sometimes you think I don't want to get stuck in one of these series for seven years.
"But I wish, I had to be honest [laughs]. I guess you can't change the story, the writing. It was very clear what George RR Martin wanted to happen to Ned Stark, and it did."
We're going to go out on a limb and say that Bean's character in World on Fire lives.
