Sean Bean on Ned Stark’s final words and being second in the dying league

Ned Stark’s presence still looms large even in the final season of Game of Thrones. So it’s no wonder that Sean Bean still gets asked questions about the George RR Martin character he played in the first series of the TV juggernaut.

When he sat down with Wired for the magazine’s most googled internet questions segment, a whole section was dedicated to Ned Stark – including the final words that the character utters before he is executed on series one.

“It was Gangnam Style,” Bean initially joked, before revealing, it was actually a little prayer. “I thought I would do something that actually meant something to me – a plea for help. In some way, it made sense and it was true.”

He also spoke about looking like Game of Thrones co-star Iain Glen when he first started acting – “we were always competing for the same parts when we left drama school” ¬– and the fact that he has a tendency to die on screen before the end of the projects he takes part in.

“I’m second in the dying league to Christopher Lee,” he joked. “I’ll have to see if I can bump it up a bit.”

Read more: Sean Bean Shares Details of Unaired ‘Game of Thrones’ Pilot

There are several lists circulating on the internet around which actors have died most on screen. Nerdist said it was John Hurt in 2016, while IMDb credited the position to Bean in 2017.

Bean recently starred in Sky One drama Curfew, which he also didn’t make it to the end of. Part Walking Dead, part Fast & Furious, the drama was set in alternative reality where part of the population are infected with a zombie-like virus. Different people take part in an illegal race, which guarantees the winner a new start on an infection-free island. Bean starred as a racer called The General.

Read more: Sean Bean to Star in Sky’s Street-Racing Drama ‘Curfew’

You can watch the complete Wired interview below.

The final season of Game of Thrones is on Monday nights on Sky Atlantic.