This story has been floating around a while now and we always hear little snippets about it. It basically goes that Sean Bean took 80 to 90 Fray Bentos Pie with him whilst he was filming Sharpe on location in India.
Bean started filming Sharpe in 1992 and the show ran until 2008 for seven series. When filming Bean said you’d be away for six months and he wasn’t sure how he would find the food in India.
When doing an interview for his film Clear Skin back in 2012, Sean Bean was asked by the interviewer “Is it true that you get Fray Bentos pies imported when you’re filming on locations?”
He responded by saying: “It all started when I was doing Sharpe I think. We couldn’t get any decent food really where we were, and Fray Bentos kind of ticks every box. For me anyway.
“And they sent me a t-shirt with ‘I Love Fray Bento’s'” he says proudly.
When asked whether he wears it he replied jokingly “Sometimes, when I’m in the garden.” We need photographic proof of Sean Bean wearing his Fray Bentos pie t-shirt whilst tending to his marigolds.
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The interview then seamlessly segways into talking about something that Sean Bean knows only too well, how to portray a hardman in a film (not sure what his reply was, as I’m now too busy focussing on Bean in his Fray Bentos t-shirt in the garden in his hometown of Sheffield of his home from home down south.
But this isn’t the first time Fray Bentosgate has been mentioned in an interview. It was also brought up on the Jonathan Ross show when Bean also promoting his film Clean Skin was discussing his time on Sharpe where he said they would be away filming the series for six months.
When he was on the Jonathan Ross show, Wossy brought up the pies saying: “Didn’t you take some food out there with you when you were out there?”
Bean knowing what he was getting at says: “I took a lot of pies” chuckling to himself. When asked which pies he replies “I took a lot of Fray Bentos”.
The intensity with which he says “They’re brilliant, they’re brilliant” is some of his finest work and definitely made us chuckle. When asked how many he took with him he replies about 80… 90″. Yep, 80-90 Steak and Kidney Fray Bentos pies.
Jonathan Ross ever the professional asked Bean: “How long do they last?” to which the Sharp actor replies “About a week before the end”
A man after my own heart, as I basically lived on them in my first year of university before I learned to cook – and I have to agree they were fantastic.
Watch the Jonathan Ross interview here:
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