After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he made his professional debut in a production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983 at The Watermill Theatre.

Bean made his film debut in the historical drama Caravaggio (1986) and received further attention for his roles in Stormy Monday (1988) and Patriot Games (1992).

He played the main antagonist Alec Trevelyan in the James Bond film GoldenEye (1995) and had a supporting role in the action thriller Ronin (1998).

His paternal grandfather, Harold Bean Jr. (1914–2001), served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War[7] and was a stud mill labourer who later became a pacifist.

After some college plays and one at Rotherham Civic Theatre, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), starting a seven-term course in January 1981.

[5] Bean graduated from RADA in 1983, making his professional acting debut later that year as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury.

[14] Between 1986 and 1988, he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in productions of Romeo and Juliet, The Fair Maid of the West, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[15][16] He appeared in his first film, Derek Jarman's Caravaggio (1986), opposite Tilda Swinton, playing Ranuccio Tomassoni, followed by the same director's War Requiem (1988).

He appeared in the BBC productions Clarissa (1991) (with Saskia Wickham and Lynsey Baxter) and Lady Chatterley (1993) (with Joely Richardson).

[19] In 1996, he combined his love of football with his career to finally achieve his childhood dream of playing for Sheffield United, starring as Jimmy Muir in the film When Saturday Comes.

The series was based on Bernard Cornwell's novels about the Peninsular War, and the fictional experiences of a band of soldiers in the famed 95th Rifles.

As Paul McGann was injured while playing football two days into filming, the producers initially tried to work around his injury, but it proved impossible and Bean replaced him.

[25] With a role as enigmatic Lord Richard Fenton in the TV miniseries Scarlett, Bean made the transition to Hollywood feature films.

[27] He played the weak-stomached Spence in Ronin (1998), a wife-beating ex-con in Essex Boys (2000), and a malevolent kidnapper/jewel thief in Don't Say a Word (2001).

In the independent film Far North, he plays a Russian mercenary who gets lost in the tundra and is rescued by an Inuit woman and her daughter, whom he later pits against one another.

After a particularly rough ride, he vowed not to fly to a location again; in one instance, he chose to take a ski lift into the mountains while wearing his full costume (complete with shield, armour, and sword) and then hike the final few miles.

[31] He became a repentant, poetry-reading Grammaton cleric who succumbs to his emotions in 2002's Equilibrium, a quirky alien cowboy in 2003's The Big Empty, and a sympathetic and cunning Odysseus in the 2004 film Troy.

Also that year, Bean starred in Cash, playing the lead role of Pyke Kubic, a dangerous man determined to recover his wealth in a bad economy.

Bean starred in the first season of Game of Thrones, HBO's adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin, playing the part of Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark.

[40][41] In 2012, Bean appeared in four films: Soldiers of Fortune; Cleanskin, in which he plays a secret service agent faced with the task of pursuing and eliminating a suicide bomber and his terrorist cell; Tarsem Singh's Snow White adaptation, Mirror Mirror; and the sequel Silent Hill: Revelation, in which he reprised his role as Christopher Da Silva.

[43][44] Bean starred in the espionage television series Legends as Martin Odum, an FBI agent who takes on various fabricated identities to go undercover.

In 2017, Bean starred in the BBC series Broken as the troubled priest Father Michael Kerrigan, which earned him a BAFTA award for Best Actor.

[48] In 2019, Bean played a damaged veteran in the TV drama World on Fire, basing his interpretation on his late paternal grandfather.

The episode saw Bean reunited with fellow Lord of the Rings castmates Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, and Elijah Wood, plus composer Howard Shore, writer Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson.

[50] In 2021, the actor was reunited with Jimmy McGovern (author of Broken and Accused) and Stephen Graham (his co-star in Tracie's Story) for the 3-part BBC prison drama Time.

[51] Bean starred alongside Nicola Walker in Stefan Golaszewski's drama series Marriage (2022), which opened to mixed reviews from both critics and viewers.

[60] Popular in his home county, a 2018 poll for Yorkshire Day saw Bean ranked the second greatest Yorkshireman ever behind Monty Python comedian, and fellow Sheffielder, Michael Palin.

[61] Despite being professionally trained, Bean adopted an instinctive style of acting that some say makes him especially well-suited to portraying his characters' depths.

After cancelling their planned January 2008 wedding on the eve of the ceremony for "personal reasons", he married Sutcliffe at the Marylebone Town Hall in London on 19 February 2008.

[69] During allegations that Bean physically abused Sutcliffe in 2009,[59] domestic disturbances resulted in the police being called to their home in Belsize Park on three occasions.