NEW YORK — Yorkshire Englishman Sean Bean has one of the great heroic death scenes in recent movie history in the first instalment of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Bean, 42, plays Boromir, one of two human members of the Fellowship and readers of the Tolkien book already know he is doomed, although in the book, this takes place in the second part of the trilogy. Filmmaker Peter Jackson changed the timing “for dramatic purposes,” he tells The Sun.

Bean was impressed with the manner Jackson staged his demise in battle because most movie death scenes “are messy and violent — which is not very nice.” Boromir dies as he regains his nobility in a scene shared with co-star and fellow human character Viggo Mortensen.

“It is good I suppose to go with some kind of dignity and knowing that you’ve learnt something on the way. He’s a better man for it, I suppose. He’s in good shape (emotionally) and he leaves in peace.”

The moment is not schmaltzy. “It’s how it was shot,” says Bean, best known for playing hero Richard Sharpe in the English TV series named for the character.

“It was great doing that scene with Viggo because he is such a generous, truthful actor and I’m glad he was there with me at the end, as it were, and he brought a sort of peacefulness to it and a spirituality to it, which I think he naturally has as a person. So that was of great help to me.”