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| Rowan Atkinson interview for Canadian radio. |
Source: Toronto Star/CRFB Radio
Interviewer: Rob Salem
Date: March 1, 1996
Nascent Bean: If you saw the show at the Bayview Playhouse in Toronto 10 years ago, there were at least two sketches there which turned into Mr. Bean sketches. Which were Mr. Bean sketches -- he was there, he just didn't have a name. He wasn't called Mr. Bean. Though I seem to remember he was wearing a tweed jacket in both of those sketches. We did him on stage for 10 years before we christened him, before he had any identity at all. It was only in 1989, three years after we were here, that we made the first Mr. Bean program. So he's been around for a while.
Mr. Bean, The Motion Picture: Yes, we are. Well, I hope we are, anyway. We've been slogging away at this idea for about three years, and it's only in the last six months that we've made real progress. We've got a second-draft screenplay, which means that with a following wind, and if we choose the right director, we might be able to make it at the end of this year. Or the beginning of next. So it's got to the point where it's probably in the offing. But it's still not definitely there. But I think it's the next thing I want to do with Mr. Bean. I think it's the most interesting next step. It's certainly a challenging one, which is why it's taking so long to work out how this television character is truly going to work on film. But we think we've got a rough scenario sketched out which we like.
Bean backlash: There's quite a lot of cynicism in England about Mr. Bean, certainly amongst ... well, amongst people like my friends, really ... but amongst media folk and, you know, pundits, the chattering classes, as they used to be known. Because it's not rude enough. Because it is almost too accessible, too populist, in a way. The good thing is that most foreign countries don't bring quite the same quantity of baggage that quite a lot of British commentators bring to the assessment of anything -- they've got so many axes to grind that you lose count. Whereas someone in Canada or in Spain or in Germany, it's all fresh to them, and they haven't got anything to complain about, because both Mr. Bean and the Blackadder are so different to anything their experience, you don't get that same sort of suspicion or cynicism. That's not to say that there's anything unpopular about Mr. Bean in the U.K., because he is as liked there as he is anywhere, thank goodness. It's just amongst the media ... But it's just something you learn to live with. I can't say that I've ever lost any sleep over it.
Bean Vs. Blackadder: It is a completely different discipline. With Mr. Bean, of course, there's hardly any words, whereas Blackadder is almost entirely verbal. And very English verbal, full of idiom and phrases and metaphors and bizarre similes. And if you're not English, or at least quite appreciative of how an English mind might work, I think it's sometimes quite difficult to follow the Blackadder (series). Until you really get into it, and then you see the way his mind works.
Favorite Blackadder: I think it's the last series, the one set in the trenches in the first World War. I suppose that's because I'm a terrible weepy softy at heart, and I think that we managed to capture the emotionally charged atmosphere of that, as well as the comedy. That feeling of impending death, and yet what a fascinating background in which to set comedy. Sometimes, the darker the backdrop that you present, the brighter that a spark of comedy will shine out in contrast to it. It's a series that's really very close to my heart, because I felt as though it really struck a chord. It said something about the nature of war, which has been said many times before ... (SALEM: Yes, but very rarely by a man with a couple of pencils shoved up his nose and a pair of underpants on his head.) Precisely. It's rarely been said with jokes.
Return to Toronto: We were here 10 years ago, en route to Broadway -- we didn't stay on Broadway very long, as you may know. We were only there for two weeks, then we got the early plane home. But it was fun to be here. I remember it was quite a small theatre, the Bayview (Playhouse), but we started with 50 people, and we were soon up to 300, or whatever the capacity of the place was. So I think it was a bit of a success. 5,000 fans at Eaton Centre: I remember being there (before), at an earlier age. The "pre-Bean" age. It was a bit quieter the last time, as I recall. But it was interesting (this morning). Slightly unsettling, really, to be treated a bit like Madonna. But still, you can only be flattered. Reception in other countries: Not quite to the degree I experienced here in Toronto. I have a feeling it just so happens that Mr. Bean is sort of at the height of interest and fascination in Canada at the moment. I did visit one country when it was in exactly that same state, and that was Holland. I went to Amsterdam once, and they had to get mounted police in to clear the crowds outside the store where I was signing, and I was bundled into the back of a police car, racing down down cobbled side-streets. That was the last time anything comparable occurred. I've only visited Germany once, and that was before Bean exploded in the way it now has there. The Germans are very keen, and as you know, when the Germans like something, they really go for it. And they're tremendous supporters and likers of "Herr Bean," as they refer to him.
On Bean's appeal: I don't know what it is. I suppose they must identify with him. I think children identify with the character because he is essentially a child at heart. Whenever I try to think of him, and try to work out how he's going to behave in any given situation I always think of what a 9-year-old boy would do. That certainly accurately describes his attitude to women. He just doesn't care a damn for them, really. He just wants to get on and have some fun. And that is a perfect Bean-ism. But even though he is, as you know, an almost entirely visual character, there is no way that simply by removing the words from a TV show that you can guarantee international acceptability. There must be something else. There must be something about the character that people truly identify with. I think adults, when they look at him, they sort of see behavior which is amusing, because it's so outrageous for an adult to behave in that way, to behave like a child, effectively. So adults are sort of laughing at the outrageous behavior, but sort of thanking God at the same time that they have learned to restrain themselves in the way that Mr. Bean has not. He has not grown up. He has no social sensitivity. He doesn't know how to behave. And he doesn't care. And that's sort of fun to watch -- someone who just doesn't obey the rules. He's an anarchist at heart, and yet he seems a very sweet and reasonable man. When you first see him, you think, "Oh, how nice. What a sweet man. He just doesn't know the way the world works, that's all." But actually, he's a nasty piece of work, really. He's vindictive, he's vengeful, he's quite repulsive usually, I think. Certainly not the kind of man one would ever wish to have dinner with. He really is very, very odd. But I think for that reason he's fascinating. You can't take your eyes off him, because you're thinking "What is he going to do next?" You see him get out of a car and meet a man with a walking stick and you think "Oh my God, what's he going to do? Is he going to ignore him? Is the old man going to be lucky, or is he going to be involved in some terrible thing with a parkingriters are inspired, really. I think everyone wants to go do other things. But I'd be very surprised if we never did it again, if we didn't do something in some medium ... someone was raising to me again last week the spectre of the idea of doing a Blackadder movie, something period and British that would probably end up looking a bit like Monty Python And The Holy Grail. I don't know. I think it's highly unlikely. But you must never say never ...
Never Say Never Again: ... a film in which I played a small part. Actually, it was the one part in a film I really don't like to watch. I mean, I think the film is great, and Sean Connery is as good as he ever is. It's just what I did in that film ... there aren't many things I look back on with dismay, but that was one. There was something just so clichéd about it, when I was hoping to have done a character, rather than a caricature. But you can't win them all. The problem about doing a part in a Bond movie is that it never goes away. Bond movies are shown again and again and again. That character is going to come back to haunt me every Christmas for the next 50 years.
The Thin Blue Line: I play a uniformed policeman -- he's an inspector, which in Britain is the rank who's in charge of the police station, and he's got the usual bunch of oddities and misfits under him, and he tries to keep the ball rolling. It's definitely more in the Blackadder tradition -- if Blackadder has gone anywhere, it's probably turned into The Thin Blue Line, because Ben Elton wrote it, and he co-wrote Blackadder with Richard Curtis. It is a similar thing, in that it's very verbal. There is a slightly Blackaddery line to Inspector Fowler's cynicism, but he's a vastly more complex character than the Blackadder -- the Blackadder was just a cynic, a plain, black-and-white cynic who took no prisoners. Whereas Fowler is a much more vulnerable, much more real character in a way, much more three-dimensional, I think. It's been fun to do something like that, with a sort of slightly greater depth, slightly more interest, slightly more vulnerability than the Blackadder ever had. We did a series last year, and we're going to do another series this summer. I know they are trying to sell it to some Canadian broadcasters, so if they succeed, you'll see it.
American television: Success in U.S. is going to be more difficult to achieve. I mean, we've made good headway, but it's quite difficult to get people to watch your program in America. It's tricky. Too many distractions, too many channels, too much media. And then it's like, "Well, why isn't the guy talking, for chrissakes?" They are far more used to verbal comedy. Mr. Bean comes from more of a European tradition, if he comes from anywhere.
British comedy: Someone was pointing out to me a few months ago just how many of the purely visual comedians that you know of have been English. Charlie Chaplin was English. Stan Laurel was English. Buster Keaton wasn't. Peter Sellers was English ... Peter Sellers also liked cars -- there's another link. (SALEM: He was also, I understand, a raging psychotic.) So the parallels continue. I'm certainly not drawing any parallels between myself and Peter Sellers on the talent front. I think Peter Sellers was an extraordinary genius, and I would never wish to compare myself. But certainly there is ... we seem to have a liking, a hankering , a fascination for that (visual tradition). And it's not something that Americans have ever really grasped or hugged to their bosom. They tend to have more of a stand-up tradition -- quite simply, a guy with a microphone, telling you what it was like on the plane that day. That's more what they're about.
Character roles in film: I've done some good ones, and some not so good ones. I mean, they're always flattering, you know, when you're told you're going to fly to the Bahamas and do a scene with Sean Connery, and you think "Well, maybe I should, rather than stay at home." But at the same time, I think I'm going to get more choosy. It was so great doing the part in Four Weddings And A Funeral, for example. It was great, because it was only a couple of days, and of course it was written by Richard Curtis, and he asked me to do it. And it was so kind of neat and funny and silly and nice to do. But there aren't, to be honest, many roles that come up like that. Except, of course, when you do a part like that, in the true tradition of the entertainment industry, a surprising number of priest roles are then offered to you. It's like, "Oh, he does priests," or "He's really good in a collar." So we get a lot of that, and obviously you have to be a bit more circumspect. I'll do anything that's good and interesting and challenging. But to be frank, not many things are that come through my door, and you end up doing your own thing. Which I am more than happy to do.
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