Bean was born in Boston, Massachusetts. As a child, Bean attended Pine Point School and The Williams School in Connecticut. An only child, he describes himself as being so quiet and shy that his school would phone his parents asking whether anything was wrong at home: "I was deathly shy and basically scared of people in general." In high school his mother encouraged him to become involved in drama, which he says helped him open up, "I found when I had a script in my hand I could speak." He later attended Boston University's College of Fine Arts before he was offered his first theatre role by director Michael Ritchie.]
The son of Richard Bean and Ruth Crocker, Bean hails from Mystic, Connecticut, although he has lived and worked in Los Angeles[citation needed] and is currently living in New York. He is friends with actor Seth Gabel and director Jack Bender[citation needed] and also says he has come to be good friends with Damages co-actor and on-screen fiancée Rose Byrne. He has been in a relationship with Nikita co-star Lyndsy Fonseca since 2013.
