Adding yet another famous name to a film already overloaded with them, Sean Bean has signed on to Ridley Scott’s latest outer space adventure. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bean will join the cast of The Martian, the upcoming survival drama in which Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on the red planet, trying to stay alive long enough for NASA to put together a rescue team. Based on the well-reviewed book of the same name, the film now boasts quite the lineup of heavy-hitters, adding Bean to the previously announced Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, and Michael Peña.
This will mark Sean Bean’s third foray into science fiction in recent years, as he also appears in the Wachowskis’ upcoming Jupiter Ascending and Adam Sandler’s latest tax write-off, Pixels. This time out, Bean will play a NASA flight director, lending his signature gravitas to the Drew Goddard-penned script. Unless, of course, his hiring is the result of Ridley Scott sending a memo to the casting director that simply said, “Hire Mr. Bean as the NASA flight director,” thinking he would be getting the beloved British physical comedian. In which case, Scott will probably just work around it, and we can all get ready for Sean Bean to execute some hilarious pratfalls while trying to get Damon off Mars.