Rowan Atkinson Quotes (27 Quotes)


    I don't much enjoy Back and Forth. I mean, I think it has its own particular qualities, but I think it's inferior to any of the half-hour ones we did.

    It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

    We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it's faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming.

    In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don't really need to explain very much at all - you just say he's a spy and he's a little bit theatrical and overblown and smug and he's not very good at his job.

    Get that right, then- if you get the quality right, then the marketability or whatever; your ability to sell videos or your ability to earn money or whatever, will follow naturally. But try to be creatively lead rather than market lead. And that's important to me.


    You're about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

    I would return to the Blackadder character if the opportunity came up. I have no qualms about that at all.

    I loved the show as a child and felt I could not do it justice.

    And that sort of reinforces to me that fact that he causes so much trouble, and never really pays a price for it, which I think he should.

    But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.

    Monty Python crowd; half of them came from Cambridge, and half of them came from Oxford. But, there seems to be this jewel, this sort of two headed tradition of doing comedy, of doing sketches, and that kind of thing.

    I feel as though the camera is almost a kind of voyeur in Mr. Bean's life, and you just watch this bizarre man going about his life in the way that he wants to.

    I'm not really a writer, so my main problem always is finding the writing talent to write something of the caliber that you would like to do.

    I think the character does tend to suit an episodic thing, because what's fun about him is that he doesn't care about anyone else, and it's very difficult for a main character - a lead character - in a movie to not care about anybody else.

    I think I am a creative person, but I'm slightly more kind of visionary... I prefer to guide writers, than to claim to be one of them.

    When I was doing Bean more than I've done him in the last few years, I did strange things - like appearing on chat shows in character as Mr. Bean.

    Marketing is what gets you noticed, and that side of it something - this side of it, if you like, doing interviews - is the side of it that I least enjoy, and yet is 50% of the project.

    I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination.

    Quite a nasty piece of work. Not the sort of person you'd want to have dinner with. On the subject of Mr. Bean

    No, no, I was only funny on stage, really. I, I, think I was funny as a person toward my classmates when I was very young. You know, when I was a child, up to about the age of 12.

    I, on the other hand, am a fully-rounded human being, with a degree from the University of Life, a diploma from the School of Hard Knocks, and three gold stars from the Kindergarten of Getting the Shit Kicked Out of Me

    As I was leaving this morning, I said to myself 'the last thing you must do is forget your speech.' And sure enough, as I left the house this morning, the last thing I did was to forget my speech.

    And, we put a lot more value, or at least I personally put a lot more value, on the creative values and creative challenges of something than the commercial necessities.

    Not so much in Canada, but certainly in the US, as I'm sure you know, money is all, and if they can get another 26 programs of the same thing even though it advances the culture or those actor's careers not at all it doesn't matter.

    I mean I can do it when I'm very relaxed, and with good friends, then I think I can be amusing.

    Of course, some would say if you have a performing inclination, then you should become a lawyer. That's a platform we use, or a priest. You know, anywhere you lecture and pontificate to people.

    And what's interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.


    More Rowan Atkinson Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Characters - Life - Quality - Movies - Creativity & Innovation - Obstacles - Morning - Writing - Friendship - Television - Education - Comedy - Opportunity - Age - Marketing - Youth - Justice - Value - English - View All Rowan Atkinson Quotations

    Related Authors


    Steve Martin - Mike Myers - Eddie Murphy - Steven Wright - Johnny Carson - John Belushi - Frank Carson - Dan Aykroyd - Bob Hope - Bill Cosby


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections