R<\/strong>owan Atkinson\u2019s character Mr. Bean is a man of few words, but the actor himself is as articulate and thoughtful as he is entertaining.<\/p>\nAtkinson took an unusual route to comedy stardom, earning a degree in electrical engineering and moving on to postgraduate work at Oxford, where his work in sketches led to a position on the BBC\u2019s satirical \u201cNot the Nine O\u2019Clock News.\u201d Soon after he found his breakout role as a sharp-tongued, scheming 15th-century nobleman in \u201cBlackadder.\u201d The series, which mixed witty dialog with Shakespearean parodies, launched three sequels and several specials in which Atkinson played devious descendants of the original character through the ages.<\/p>\n
His next character, the bumbling and nearly silent Mr. Bean, was a creature of pure physical comedy, the sort of hapless fellow who would set out to stuff a turkey and wind up with his head stuck in the cavity. Bean, too, enjoyed numerous TV incarnations, spinning off an animated series and two feature films. The third, \u201cMr. Bean\u2019s Holiday,\u201d which sends him on vacation to France, opens nationwide Friday.<\/p>\n
Q<\/strong> In the finale of your new film, Mr. Bean makes a mess of the Cannes Film Festival. What do you think of festivals and awards ceremonies where the moviemaking community celebrates itself?<\/p>\nA<\/strong> I tend not to have a lot to do with them, to be honest, which is why I found it quite easy to take a satirical position of them and the kind of movies that get shown at them. Willem Dafoe plays a film writer\/director\/star [with] a film being presented at Cannes which is ruined by the fact that Mr. Bean manages to play a holiday video in the middle of the presentation. I visited Cannes merely as a sort of research mechanism for this movie, and apart from that, I haven\u2019t been. And I\u2019ve not been to any other film festival, because the kind of movies I\u2019ve been involved with are not the kind that film festivals are remotely interested in.<\/p>\nQ<\/strong> You have one line of comic performance that is highly verbal and another that is mute. Why?<\/p>\nA<\/strong> I\u2019m happy in both modes. The good thing about verbal comedy is you tend to have more companionship. Because the very nature of mute comedy, and Mr. Bean as a character, is insularity. He\u2019s a lonely man, really, just living his own self-centered life. I\u2019ve always preferred the verbal stuff because you spend more time talking to other people.<\/p>\nQ<\/strong> You\u2019re best known for the innocent Mr. Bean and the snide Blackadder. Which is closer to your personality?<\/p>\nA<\/strong> I definitely do not have the wit of Blackadder. And I don\u2019t think I\u2019m as dark or cynical as Blackadder is in his view of the world. Probably I\u2019m somewhere in between but closer to Mr. Bean. You know, the nice bits of Mr. Bean, because Mr. Bean has a very vindictive and selfish and nasty side to him. I hope I don\u2019t have too much of that.<\/p>\nQ <\/strong>Was Mr. Bean created as an homage to silent comedians or as a means of entry into international markets where verbal comedy doesn\u2019t translate?<\/p>\nA<\/strong> He was just a persona I seemed to naturally become as an actor in comedy sketches without words. If I\u2019m denied words, Mr. Bean\u2019s physicality and attitude to life [are] what I seem to acquire. In 1989 we put him on TV and there was no doubt the motivation was a belief that we had a character that could live in other markets and other countries. Latterly, he was pursued because we thought it would have a global acceptance, which it turned out to have.<\/p>\nQ<\/strong> You have a rather intense demeanor. Have you ever considered exploring drama in an entirely serious role?<\/p>\nA<\/strong> I\u2019ve come close to it. I made a movie last year called \u201cKeeping Mum\u201d with Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas that had quite a serious role, kind of semi-serious, semi-comic. I\u2019ve no great manic ambition to do it. I don\u2019t feel as though I need to be serious in order to prove something or to derive satisfaction from life. I\u2019m very happy doing silly things. I think that\u2019s as difficult a task as you can set yourself.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> Many actors avoid watching their performances. Is that your practice?<\/p>\n A.<\/strong> The funny thing it, with all the Mr. Bean movies, I\u2019m intimately involved with all the processes and the editing so I watch my performance for month after month every day. But I detach myself entirely from it. There\u2019s nothing about my performance that worries me. The things that consume me are all to do with story, which is why I like to sit in on the directing and editing. That\u2019s what\u2019s going to make things funny or not as long as I do my bit during shooting, which generally I feel I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rowan Atkinson speaks about his two most famous, and diametrically opposite, characters, the bumbling Mr. Bean and the devious Blackadder. By Colin Covert, Star Tribune Rowan Atkinson\u2019s character Mr. Bean is a man of few words, but the actor himself is as articulate and thoughtful as he is entertaining. Atkinson took an unusual route to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":322,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-517","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P54TBn-8l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":324,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?page_id=324","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":0},"title":"Rowan Atkinson – Interview","author":"admin","date":"12 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Fears of a clown - The Rowan Atkinson interview He's the rubber-faced joker with millions in the bank and a 007 spoof on the way, yet Rowan Atkinson would still swap the burden of comedy for the joy of fixing a plug. Amy Raphael Sunday March 30, 2003 The Observer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":743,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?page_id=743","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":1},"title":"Audio","author":"admin","date":"19 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are some extracts from the audio commentaries taken from the Blackadder Remastered \u2013 The Ultimate Edition DVDs. I\u2019ve only included the first 3 minutes from each track. If you want to hear them in their entirety, then buy the DVDs (available from the shop). Major Star Tony Robinson and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":255,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?page_id=255","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":2},"title":"The Royal Gardener","author":"admin","date":"12 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Rowan Atkinson has created a new reincarnation of Blackadder for a TV advert promoting the Queen's jubilee concert. The new character, Sir Osmond Darling-Blackadder, is keeper of Her Majesty's lawn sprinkler. The following is an edited transcript of the advert (the boring voice over bits have been removed). I must\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":804,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?page_id=804","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":3},"title":"Blackadder Rides Again","author":"admin","date":"23 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"To mark the 25th anniversary since the first transmission of Blackadder in 1983, the iconic cast of the much-loved sitcom appeared together in a documentary for the first time. Originally broadcast on Christmas day on BBC1 in 2008, the show included an exclusive in-depth interview with Edmund Blackadder himself, Rowan\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":573,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?page_id=573","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":4},"title":"Tube Talk Gold","author":"admin","date":"14 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Original source: Digitalspy.co.uk Whenever anyone feels compelled to compile a list of the all-time great UK sitcoms, the various iterations of\u00a0Blackadder\u00a0are more often than not justly placed near the top. The show boasted a unique format - each series was set in a different historical period, with different incarnations of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":740,"url":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/?page_id=740","url_meta":{"origin":517,"position":5},"title":"Audio","author":"admin","date":"19 October 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are some extracts from the audio commentaries taken from the Blackadder Remastered - The Ultimate Edition DVDs. I've only included the first 3 minutes from each track. If you want to hear them in their entirety, then buy the DVDs (available from the shop). Ink & Incapability Rowan Atkinson\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackadderhall.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}