Character Analysis: Sean

Character Analysis: Sean

By: Brian Cotnoir

     Deep down in the very pit of my soul, I’m still a Punk at heart.  I grew up listening to bands like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Green Day, Black Flag, and as I got older I became more involved in the Straight Edge Scene and local hardcore scenes.  Even today, I make an attempt to attend every local punk show I can.  I hope someday to look back on my Punk days with fondness, like how I look back at James Merendino’s 1999 Indie Classic “SLC Punk”.  I’ve enjoyed this film ever since I first saw it in college, and now fans of “SLC Punk” have been blessed with a sequel, “Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2”, and much to our delight, many of the original cast members have showed up to reprise their roles a whopping 17 years later.  So today I’m going to pay homage to my favorite character from those films, Sean.

CHARACTER: Sean from “SLC Punk” (1999) and “Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2” (2016)

Sean in "SLC Punk" (1999)

We are first introduced to Sean through a flashback told by Heroin Bob. The year is 1985, Sean is a high school student at Southeast High School in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He is a former Mod, who later became a Punk (with giant spikey green hair and everything).  He sells acid to Mods for money.  After being chased by the schools resource officer, Sean runs across the soccer field where his pants get soaked by the automatic sprinklers.  All the acid in Sean’s pants melts and dissolves into his skin.  Heroin Bob claims that Sean got the equivalent of 112 hits of acid all at once.  All that acid fried Sean’s brain and caused him to suffer hallucinations.  He is found sitting out on a chair in his front yard in the snow by Heroin Bob, who Sean believes is actually Jesus.  Sean tells Bob that Satan is in his house and killed his mom and turned her into a bull.  We later see that Sean’s mom has called the police and has her son arrested.                 

    The next time we see Sean he is living on the streets begging for loose change. He sees his other friend Steve-O, and tells him about how much it sucks being homeless, and how he’s struggling to find work.  You can clearly see that Sean is still suffering from some pretty severe psychological effects as a result of absorbing all of that acid into his body.

Yeah, but not much else going for you, Sean.

THE ACTOR:

Sean is played in both films by Actor Devon Sawa.  Sawa did a great job with the role in both films and managed to be one of the most memorable characters in the film despite having a very limited screen time.  What’s even more impressive is how Sawa managed to portray Sean in two completely different ways with almost 20 years in between films.  I’m going to be a little bit bias and say that Sawa did a much better job in “SLC Punk” then in “Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2”, but that’s just my opinion.  An interesting side note: Sawa was one of the Co-producers of the sequel.

Is it just me, or does Devon Sawa look like the 

offspring of Jeremy Renner and Dolph Lundgren?

CHARACTER IS SIMILAR TO OR INSPIRED BY:

I can’t think of any characters in film that Sean is similar to or inspired by.

FATE OF THE CHARACTER:

Sean(L) and John the Mod (R) in "Punk's Dead"

In “Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2” we see that 20 years later, Sean has finally gotten his life together.  He finally got the psychological help he needed and is working for an Unnamed State Senator at the Capitol in Salt Lake City.  When he’s not working at the Capital he’s usually hanging out at Warrior Music, a Black Metal music shop owned by his good friend “John the Mod” (who is no longer a Mod).  Sean tells Trish (the mother of Heroin Bob’s son, Ross) that he used to swing by his office every now and then and ask him for advice and for him to tell him about the father he never met.  Sean is the one who figures out where Ross most likely went to in the sequel, and at the end is the voice of reason to help out Trish and Ross work through their differences and emotional turmoil’s.