The English actor stars as Father Michael Kerrigan in the new six-part drama which airs for the first time on Tuesday evening (23rd May).
He said: "It's certainly given me more of an insight, whether we go to church or not. I think it's something that you take as you find it and if it helps you, then that's a good thing."
Bean visited several priests in Liverpool to help him prepare for his character, who presides over a troubled northern England parish.
Sean is well known for playing characters who have suffered brutal deaths, including Boromir in Lord of the Rigs (2001) and villain Alex Trevelyan in the James Bond film Goldeneye (1995).
Describing his latest TV role as a "quite refreshing" change, he said: "I was always dealing with someone with problems and I wasn't causing problems and I was trying to help people.
"In a lot of things I am always causing problems until I get killed. This is the other way round, and so it's coming to it from a different mind-set."
Sean Bean stars in Broken alongside Anna Friel, Paula Malcolmson, Aisling Loftus and Adrian Dunbar in the Jimmy McGovern production.