Mr Bean Early Life, Relationships, Career, Family, Wiki, Age, Producing, Facts, Filmography

NAME

Rowan Atkinson

OCCUPATION

Actor, Comedian

BIRTH DATE

January 6, 1955 (age 63)

EDUCATION

The Queen's College, University of Oxford

PLACE OF BIRTH

Newcastle, England

AKA

Rowan Atkinson

FULL NAME

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson

ZODIAC SIGN

Capricorn

Early life

Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England, on 6 January 1955.

His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers are Paul, who died as an infant; Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the UK Independence Party leadership election in 2000; and Rupert.

Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, a preparatory school, St Bees School, and Newcastle University, where he received a degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college where his father matriculated in 1935, and which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006.

First winning national attention in The Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1976, he had already written and performed early sketches for shows in Oxford by the Etceteras — the revue group of the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), and for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), meeting writer Richard Curtis, and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.

Career

Radio

Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1979 called The Atkinson People. It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.

Retirement of Mr. Bean

In November 2012, it emerged that Rowan Atkinson intended to retire Mr. Bean. "The stuff that has been most commercially successful for me — basically quite physical, quite childish — I increasingly feel I'm going to do a lot less of," Atkinson told the Daily Telegraph's Review. "Apart from the fact that your physical ability starts to decline, I also think someone in their 50s being childlike becomes a little sad. You've got to be careful." He has also said that the role typecast him to a degree. But in 2016 Atkinson said he would never retire playing the beloved Mr Bean.

In January 2014 ITV announced a new animated series featuring Mr. Bean with Rowan Atkinson returning to the role. It was expected to be released online as a Web-series later in 2014, as a television broadcast followed shortly after. In October 2014, Atkinson also appeared as Mr. Bean in a TV advert for Snickers. In 2015, he starred alongside Ben Miller and Rebecca Front in a sketch for BBC Red Nose Day in which Mr. Bean attends a funeral. In 2017, he appeared as Mr. Bean in the Chinese film Huan Le Xi Ju Ren.

Comic style

Best known for his use of physical comedy in his Mr. Bean persona, Atkinson's other characters rely more heavily on language. Atkinson often plays authority figures (especially priests or vicars) speaking absurd lines with a completely deadpan delivery.

One of his better-known comic devices is over-articulation of the "B" sound, such as his pronunciation of "Bob" in the Blackadder IIepisode "Bells". Atkinson suffers from a stammer, and the over-articulation is a technique to overcome problematic consonants.

Atkinson's often visually based style, which has been compared to that of Buster Keaton, sets him apart from most modern television and film comics, who rely heavily on dialogue, as well as stand-up comedy which is mostly based on monologues. This talent for visual comedy has led to Atkinson being called "the man with the rubber face"; comedic reference was made to this in an episode of Blackadder the Third ("Sense and Senility"), in which Baldrick (Tony Robinson) refers to his master, Mr. E. Blackadder, as a "lazy, big-nosed, rubber-faced bastard".

Personal life

In March 2001, while Atkinson was on a holiday trip to Kenya, the pilot of his private plane fainted. Atkinson managed to maintain the plane in the air until the pilot recovered and was able to land the plane at Nairobi's Wilson Airport.

Marriage and children

Rowan Atkinson married Sunetra Sastry in February 1990. They have two children, Ben and Lily. The couple first met in the late 1980s, when she was working as a makeup artist with the BBC. They separated in 2014 and were divorced on 10 November 2015. Atkinson has been in a relationship with Louise Ford since 2014; she gave birth to Atkinson's third child in December 2017.

Political activism

In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the United Kingdom's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry, and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which they felt would give overwhelming power to religious groups to impose censorship on the arts. In 2009, he criticized homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.

In October 2012, he voiced his support for the Reform Section 5 campaign, which aims to reform or repeal Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, particularly its statement that an insult can be grounds for arrest and punishment. It is a reaction to several recent high-profile arrests, which Atkinson sees as a restriction of freedom of expression.

Religious views

Atkinson is an outspoken critic of religious views and opposes the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 law.

Honours

Atkinson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to drama and charity.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1982	Fundamental Frolics	Himself	Short film
1983	Dead on Time	Bernard Fripp	Short Film
1983	Never Say Never Again	Nigel Small-Fawcett
1988	The Appointments of Dennis Jennings	Dr. Schooner	Short Film
1989	The Tall Guy	Ron Anderson
1990	The Witches	Mr. Stringer
1993	Hot Shots! Part Deux	Dexter Hayman
1994	Four Weddings and a Funeral	Father Gerald
1994	The Lion King	Zazu	Voice
1997	Bean	Mr. Bean	Also executive Producer
2000	Maybe Baby	Mr. James
2001	Rat Race	Enrico Pollini
2002	Scooby-Doo	Emile Mondavarious
2003	Johnny English	Johnny English	Nominated — European Film Award for Best Actor
2003	Love Actually	Rufus
2005	Keeping Mum	Reverend Walter Goodfellow
2007	Mr. Bean's Holiday	Mr. Bean
2011	Johnny English Reborn	Johnny English
2017	Huan Le Xi Ju Ren	Mr. Bean	Cameo
2018	Johnny English Strikes Again	Johnny English	Also producer

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1979	Canned Laughter	Robert Box	Pilot; also writer
1979	The Secret Policeman's Ball	Himself	Television special
1979–1982	Not the Nine O'Clock News	Various roles	28 episodes; also writer
1980	Peter Cook & Co	Various roles	Television special
1980	The Innes Book of Records		1 episode
1981	The Secret Policeman's Other Ball	Various roles	Television special
1983	The Black Adder	Prince Edmund Plantagenet	6 episodes; also co-creator and writer
1986	Blackadder II	Edmund, Lord Blackadder	6 episodes
1986	Saturday Live	Himself (host)	1 episodes
1987	Blackadder the Third	Edmund Blackadder	6 episodes
1988	Blackadder: The Cavalier Years	Sir Edmund Blackadder	Television short
1988	Blackadder's Christmas Carol	Ebenezer Blackadder	Television special
1989	Blackadder Goes Forth	Captain Edmund Blackadder	6 episodes
1990–1995	Mr. Bean	Mr. Bean	15 episodes; also co-creator and writer
1991	Bernard and the Genie	Bernard's Boss	Television film
1991	The Driven Man	Himself	Television documentary; also writer
1992	Rowan Atkinson Live	Himself	Television special; also writer
1992	Funny Business	Kevin / Narrator	6 episodes; also writer
1992	A Bit of Fry & Laurie	Guest	1 episode
1992	Laughing Matters	Himself (host)	Television documentary
1995–1996	The Thin Blue Line	Inspector Raymond Fowler	14 episodes
1999	Blackadder: Back & Forth	Lord Blackadder / King Edmund III / Centurion Blaccadius	Television film
1999	Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death	The Doctor	Television special
2001	Popsters	Nasty Neville	Television short
2002–2004 2015–2016	Mr. Bean	Mr. Bean	Voice 104 episodes; also executive producer
2003	Lying to Michael Jackson	Martin Bashir	Television short
2005	Spider-Plant Man	Peter Piper/Spider-Plant Man	Television short
2010	Bondi Rescue	Mr. Bean	1 episode
2012	The Olympics Opening Ceremony	Mr. Bean	Television special
2013	Live from Lambeth Palace sketches	The Archbishop of Canterbury	Television special
2015	Horrible Histories	Henry VIII of England	1 episode
2016–present	Maigret	Jules Maigret
2017	Red Nose Day Actually	Rufus	Television short

Television advertisements

Year	Title	Role
1980	Kronenbourg 1664	Customs officer
1983	Appletiser	Fisherman
1989	Give Blood	Doctor
1991–1997	Barclaycard	Richard Latham
1994	REMA 1000	Mr. Bean
1997	M&M's	Mr. Bean
1999	Nissan Tino	Mr. Bean
2014	Snickers	Mr. Bean
2018	Etisalat	Agent One

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	Rowan Atkinson in Revue	Various roles	Also writer Globe Theatre
	Rowan Atkinson in New Revue	Various roles
1984	The Nerd	Willum Cubbert	Aldwych Theatre
1986	Rowan Atkinson at the Atkinson	Various roles	Also writer Brooks Atkinson Theatre
1988	The Sneeze	Various roles	Aldwych Theatre
2009	Oliver!	Fagin	Drury Lane
2013	Quartermaine's Terms	St. John Quartermaine	Wyndham's Theatre