People stared at the make-up on his face…
Sean Bean has never made a secret of his love for the music of David Bowie, indeed I’m sure he wouldn’t disagree that he would have been happily referred to as a Bowie Freak back in the day.
A Google search will highlight just how many times he’s mentioned his Bowie worship over the years, but now he has elaborated further with Amy Raphael in
Here’s the relevant bit…
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In his bedroom in the modest family home he had Airfix model planes dangling from the ceiling on strings; David Bowie, Lou Reid (sic) and Iggy Pop posters covered the walls. Asked about Bowie, almost immediately Bean’s guard drops. He sits back on the sofa, looks at me sideways, smiles. He seems to be enjoying the nostalgia. ?I saw Bowie at Earl’s Court during his Thin White Duke period. It was fantastic. The show started with clips from Luis Buñuel’s surrealist films Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’Or. There was an image of a razor blade slashing through an eye, a cloud went over the moon, the stage went dark. Then Bowie came on. It was properly exciting.?
Did he glam up? He hides his face in the china tea cup and starts mumbling again. ?Er, well.? So the answer is yes? He shrugs. ?OK, I wore similar outfits to Bowie. The truth is, I was a clone. I dyed my hair red, wore jumpsuits and big stack heels decorated with stars.? So here he was, this working-class Sheffield United fan, glamming it up as a 17-year-old. How did that go down locally? ?People in Sheffield thought I was a poof. A weirdo. Which encouraged me to do it even more. I risked getting my head kicked in for a while, but then glam rock became more mainstream and dyeing your hair, wearing make-up and dressing up became more acceptable.?
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Obviously pedants such as myself will feel the urge to point out that the show Sean mentions was at Wembley, not Earl’s Court. Also it was only Un Chien Andalou shown and not L’Age d’Or…and Un Chien Andalou was shown in its entirity before the show started.
In other interviews where Bean has spoken about the Bowie influence he was quick to point out that though he wore make up and died his hair, he “…never wore lipstick. Ever!” But he did admit that it was the writers and other cultural aspects he picked up on through Bowie’s influence that probably sent him down the acting road in the first place.
Sadly, we couldn’t trace any pictures of Bean as Bowie, so instead I’ve posted the drawing above of David Bowie in the sort of clobber Sean Bean might feel more comfortable in.
You can read the full interview