Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born January 6, 1955) is an English comedian, actor and writer, famous for his work on the classic sitcoms Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line and, Mr. Bean as well as doing the voice-over for Zazu in The Lion King and as a British comic secret agent Johnny English. He also played as house-sitter Trevor Bingley in Man vs. Bee. He has been listed as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians.
Early life
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January 1955, in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and his wife Ella May, who married on 29 June 1945. He has two elder brothers, Rodney Atkinson, an economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert Atkinson.
Atkinson was raised Anglican. He was educated at Durham Choristers School, followed by St Bees School, and studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University. He continued with an MSc at The Queens College Oxford, first achieving notice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1976. At Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Review and the Experimental Theatre (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodell, 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.
Television
After university, Atkinson did a one-off pilot for London Weekend Television in 1979 called Canned Laughter. He gained further national attention when he performed on the third The Secret Policeman's Ball in June 1979 which was broadcast on the BBC, and since then he has appeared on televised skits with various performers including Elton John, John Cleese ("Beekeeping") and Kate Bush, the latter with whom he performed the humorous song "Do Bears... ?" for the British charity event Comic Relief in 1986. Solo skits on television (and without dialogue) have included playing an invisible drum kit and an invisible piano. In October 1979, Atkinson first appeared on Not the Nine O'Clock News for the BBC, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He featured in the show with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.
The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to Atkinson taking the lead role of Edmund Blackadder in the BBC mock-historical comedy Blackadder. His co-stars included Tony Robinson (who played his long-suffering sidekick Baldrick), Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. The first series, The Black Adder (1983), co-written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, was set in the mediæval period, with the title character unintelligent and naïve. The second series, Blackadder II (1986), written by Curtis and Ben Elton, marked a turning point for the show. It followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era, with the character reinvented as a devious anti-hero. Metro states, "watching Atkinson work in series two is to watch a master of the sarcastic retort in action". Two sequels followed, Blackadder the Third (1987), set in the Regency era, and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), set in World War I. The Blackadder series became one of the most successful of all BBC situation comedies, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988), Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988), and later Blackadder: Back & Forth (1999), which was set at the turn of the Millennium. The final scene of "Blackadder Goes Forth" (when Blackadder and his men go "over the top" and charge into No-Man's-Land) has been described as "bold and highly poignant". Possessing an acerbic wit and armed with numerous quick put-downs (which are often wasted on those at whom they are directed), Edmund Blackadder was ranked third (behind Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers) on a 2001 Channel 4 poll of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.
Atkinson's other creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Year's Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened to a modern-day Buster Keaton, but Atkinson himself has stated that Jacques Tati's character Monsieur Hulot was the main inspiration. Atkinson states, "The essence of Mr Bean is that he's entirely selfish and self-centred and doesn't actually acknowledge the outside world. He's a child in a man's body. Which is what most visual comedians are about: Stan Laurel, Chaplin, Benny Hill".
Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television until 1995, and the character later appeared in a feature film. Bean (1997) was directed by Mel Smith, Atkinson's colleague in Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second film, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in 2007.
Atkinson also portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in The Thin Blue Line (1995–96), a television sitcom written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.
Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Kronenbourg, Fujifilm, and Give Blood. He appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent named Richard Lathum in a long-running series of adverts for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English, Johnny English Reborn and Johnny English Strikes Again was based. In 1999, he played the Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death, a special Doctor Who serial produced for the charity telethon Comic Relief. Atkinson appeared as the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car on the BBC's Top Gear in July 2011, driving the Kia Cee'd around the track in 1:42.2. Placing him at the top of the leaderboard, his lap time was quicker than the previous high-profile record holder Tom Cruise, whose time was a 1:44.2.
In November 2012, it emerged that 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. Despite these comments, Atkinson said in 2016 that he would never retire the character of Mr. Bean. Appearing on The Graham Norton Show on the BBC in 2018, Atkinson told Graham Norton that it was unlikely Mr. Bean would reappear on television again before also saying "you must never say never".
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, Atkinson appeared as Mr. Bean in the Chinese film Huan Le Xi Ju Ren. In February 2019, Atkinson appeared as Mr. Bean in a commercial for Emirati-based telecommunications company Etisalat. Atkinson, who also narrated the commercial, takes on multiple characters: a Scottish warrior, a gentleman and a lady from the Victorian era, a football player, a jungle man, a man revving up a chainsaw, a racing car driver, and a masked sword-wielding Spanish vigilante.
Atkinson starred as Jules Maigret in Maigret, a series of television films from ITV.
In October 2018, Atkinson (as Mr. Bean) received YouTube's Diamond Play Button for his channel surpassing 10 million subscribers on the video platform. Among the most-watched channels in the world, in 2018 it had more than 6.5 billion views. Mr. Bean is also among the most-followed Facebook pages with 94 million followers in July 2020, "more than the likes of Rihanna, Manchester United or Harry Potter".
In 30 April 2025, Atkinson has said that it's unlikely he'll ever make a live-action return as Mr Bean but "it's not an impossibility" Speaking on Good Morning Britain today, to promote the return of the Mr Bean animated series on the ITVX platform and children's channel Boomerang a day after, Atkinson admitted that he "occasionally" thinks about reprising his most internationally recognised role.[1]
Animated Mr. Bean
In January 2014, ITV announced a new animated series featuring Mr. Bean with Rowan Atkinson returning to the role. It was began on February 16, 2015 and ended on March 10, 2016.
On 6 February 2018, Regular Capital announced that there would be a third series of Mr. Bean: The Animated Series in 2019 (voiced by Atkinson). Consisting of 26 episodes, the first two segments, "Game Over" and "Special Delivery", aired on 9 April 2019 on CITV in the UK as well as on Turner channels worldwide. All five series (104 episodes) were also sold to Chinese children's channel CCTV-14 in February 2019.
Film
Atkinson in 1997, promoting Bean. In 2014, young adults from abroad named Mr. Bean among a group of people they most associated with British culture.
Atkinson's film career began with a supporting part in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983) and a leading role in Dead on Time (also 1983) with Nigel Hawthorne. He was in the 1988 Oscar-winning short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings. He appeared in Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy (1989) and appeared alongside Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling in The Witches (1990), a film adaptation of Roald Dahl's dark fantasy children's novel. He played the part of Dexter Hayman in Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), a parody of Rambo III, starring Charlie Sheen.
Atkinson gained further recognition as a verbally bumbling vicar in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, written and directed by his long time collaborator Richard Curtis), and featured in Disney's The Lion King (also 1994) as the voice of Zazu the red-billed hornbill. He also sang the song "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" in The Lion King. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), jewellery salesman Rufus in another Richard Curtis British-set romantic comedy, Love Actually (2003), and the crime comedy Keeping Mum (2005), which also starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, and Patrick Swayze.
In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen with Bean (1997) to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), (again inspired to some extent by Jacques Tati in his film Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot), also became an international success. He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English film series (2003–present). In 2023, Atkinson stars as priest, Father Julius, in Wonka, a film which serves as a prequel to the Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, exploring Willy Wonka's origins.
In February 2024, it was announced that he would star in a fourth Johnny English film, reprising the role of the title character.
Personal Life
Marriage and children
Atkinson got married at the Russian Tea Room in New York City, U.S., with Sunetra Sastry. The couple have two children, Benjamin Alexander Sebastian (born 1993) and Lily Grace Atkinson (born 1995), and live in England in the Northamptonshire village of Apethorpe, as well as the Oxfordshire village of Waterperry and London.
Politics
In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK'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 — on the grounds that the bill would give religious groups a "weapon of disproportionate power" whose threat would engender a culture of self-censorship among artists.
In 2009, he criticised 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.
Cars
With an estimated wealth of £100 million, Atkinson is able to indulge his passion for cars that began with driving his mother's Morris Minor around the family farm. He has written for the British magazines Car, Octane and Evo.
Atkinson also holds a UK LGV licence, gained because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor.
A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.
Atkinson's car collection is dominated by Aston Martins, including the DB7 Vantage used in Johnny English. His Aston Martin V8 Zagato, featuring a novelty registration plate, was driven by his character Ron Anderson in the film The Tall Guy. Atkinson was cited for speeding in the car, just as Jeff Goldblum's character was in the movie. He also received a driving ban as a result of the incident. He also races in his V8 Zagato, from which he escaped unhurt after crashing it into a barrier at an Aston Martin Owners Club event in Croft Circuit in 2001. He is reported to have placed an advanced order for a Morgan Aero Max, which costs £110,000.
Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns one McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident with an Austin Metro. Other cars he owns include an Audi A8, and a Honda Civic Hybrid.
The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back. A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and chetif." He also owns a Mercedes-Benz 600 . One car Atkinson will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people — and I wish them no ill — are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one."