Rowan Atkinson 'Mr Bean' on The Graham Norton Show. 5 Oct 2018

Trying to use our final guest, his British comedy legend has created characters like Black Adder Johnny English and of course Mr. Bean, will be back on our screens in Johnny English Strikes Again, please, welcome, great, it's a proper

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biz reunion, yeah, you haven't talked about it yet, but we did it in 1980, thirty years ago, yes I said Yes, it was with Richard Curtis, yes, yes. exactly, it was kind of an almost autobiographical thing about, actually, there we are, where I played a horrible, self-absorbed comedian. Jeff played my partner, which was Richard Curtis's role, because Richard Curtis and I used to do a

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, you know?

Together when we first started, we were doing our comedy reviews and it was me and Richard and Sir Richard then wrote this film in which he portrayed this horrible monster of a comedian and yeah, it was a bit complicated. Obviously, you don't want to admit that it was in any biographical sense, but it was thought that maybe if I played the role, no one would be able to tell, well, of course, that's really around Eckerson, someone else played the role, so they would have said I would have said do you know who he is but it was me anyway they said they thought oh it can't be him it can't be like that actually he's just pretending he's just acting there's this horrible comedian Johnny English is trying to get out he's coming out tonight and all these Wow this one tonight tonight congratulations this is the third I mean they're very successful because they're funny oh yeah, they're doing well I mean, they're funny I mean, they're very silly and they're a family comedy, which is a relatively rare thing nowadays.

You have family comedies, but they are usually animated. You know, they're usually lively and fierce, and have live-action family comedies. I see there aren't many. most comedies are more for adults, yes, and this one begins with Johnny English, he has retired, yes, he is retired, he is a geography teacher at a small school in Lincolnshire, he doesn't teach much geography because he has decided to use and teach his spy techniques from his past to his students doing anything and of course the kids are having a great time too because it's fun you know yeah you know being a spy is fun it's a bird yeah I don't think is teaching. a huge amount of geography Ellis, we have a clip, it's basically a sample of Johnny English in action, okay I'm not sure I've ever met a man like you, you don't have many problems, good VR, it's completely immersive. and some people lose records about it, that's not going to happen, just ask him what's wrong.

Did you or didn't you burn the Cote du Hoc restaurant to the ground? You fired a missile at an apple in a French circus long before you took over an open space. -top bus and throw out the top day tour guide yes yes yes it was too I just didn't ask you it was a meeting sorry Jeff, yes I would, that was his first movie, the one we did, it was wonderful there. It's just those fantastic scenes that people love to see you do, you know, the energy tablets yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, it must be that it was a current, it wasn't a healing, actually, yeah, it It was, yes, it's a dance sequence. where I show something extreme, there are some of your moves, it's very and it was very exhausting, yes, I have to say, and you know, it doesn't get any less exhausting as the years go by to keep a guy and we only did a couple of Tomas. where I just did the dumbest things I could, yeah, and it's a very in your face kind of attitude, that's funny, yeah, funny, yeah, don't laugh, don't you ever laugh?

Oh yes, I laugh, yes, yes, that's good, very occasionally. I find it funny what I do, but it's almost true that there's often a lot of suffering on stage, where it happens more when you feel like you know something about performing on stage, your acting is more likely to go out of control, you know, sometimes, when trying to make a performance or Trying to make a moment funny is like trying to push a ball up a hill and you try to get it as high as you can and then sometimes there is an extraordinary moment where it rolls over on the other side and it slips away from you and you're not really in charge of the performance anymore and there's actually something about the moment where it just goes "whoa" and you know you've been pushing, you've tried everything you can, but you've got it pretty high. and that's fine, but then suddenly it can go further and suddenly you don't have control of your performance, it's more a question of restrictions.

I think it's only happened to me on stage when I do sort of comedy sketches and things on stage rather than in a film as a film. Oh, movie, I think. very, very difficult, stressful, that's the constant belief that what you're doing is not as good as it could be, you know, and of course the fun thing about film is that you can try again if you do it well, you have a great set, oh yes, why? That guy, could he do it again? I'll do it again, yeah, I mean, eventually I stop working and that's usually when the director says, Jamie, you're your bad corpse, right?

You love to laugh, that's all I do, yeah, no, no. Kevin I think Kevin Kline hates me for many reasons, mainly because he would ruin the great shots he would do because he would laugh at me. I have a secret, although I take a toothpick, a needle or a safety pin and hold it in my hands. fingers here under the camera and I squeeze it very hard until it bleeds oh yes, I don't want to see that I don't need to do that, no, I'm easy to laugh, never, they, very often they try and collect these types of error tapes things like Black Adder and they're always looking for the moment when I die or when I laugh or when I make a mistake and there's not in all the older series a black man out of there. and none of me can be remotely immunized so it's very sad who his sponsors are Johnny English yes, in this third movie what happens to mr.

bean

eyes, have you drawn a line under it?

No more, sir.

bean

, you know, I doubt it will reappear, but um, but you never know, you never should but you know you should never say never again film so you should never say never, but oh, you know there comes a point where you feel like even though it's done most of what you want to do with it and because it's not based on language because it's very physical, sir. B, he is uniformly popular everywhere, yes, he has what we could call global reach, so, like our misery vacation, can you go to many places where you are not recognized?

And yeah, what I find most difficult is when people don't particularly recognize you, but they half-recognize you, you know, that's the first thing they do, they just feel like I wish that person wouldn't look at me, I'm sorry, you know, I'd rather That you just, you know, hold the flag and say yes. A few years ago I was in a Land Rover parts department near Peterborough, the kind of place you find me in those yes and waiting for car parts and car parts, you guys are around a lot because you know that getting a piece of the guy has to go half a mile to the back of the warehouse and then come back and he brings it back and says this is the one on the left oh you wanted to write on one sorry I'll go anyway it takes forever.

He was standing with a group of guys and I could see this guy doing that and he came up to me after a while and then he said: Excuse me, has anyone ever told you that you are the spitting image of that man? Bean said well, I'm actually the actor who plays Mr. Bean and he said, "I bet you wish it was you." said the similar, have you ever thought about doing one and do you know that similar work is like long sad nights like mr. bean, he said because it could be done an absolute and I realized it after a while.

I had to close the conversation because not only did he not believe me but he was getting quite upset. I was following this line. I'm Rowan Atkinson when and he clearly thought I was a complete idiot like mr. Bean goes around the country claiming to be me just to say if you never do it, mr. Bean again, what an incredible way to take a bow, Mr. Bean in 2012 at the O'Brien yes yes yes early in the Olympics because you look at this new mr. Bean at the opening, well we did the closing, yes, and I was interested only because you used to be in a movie studio, it must have been terrifying to do it live in front of an audience, yes, a world audience, yes, yes, but no .

It doesn't matter how much you know people tell you that there are two and a half billion people watching whatever you or know that 80,000 or many were in the stadium. Yeah, you're more used to those bigger odds than I am, but funny thing. The thing is that at night in the moment you know you rehearse the piece because I'm not an improviser, you know, you know, you write something, in fact, Richard Curtis wrote and conceived that thing about the chariots of fire and he goes on and you rehearsed it and he you've done it a few times, you've done it with Simon Rattle directing and that's it and the only thing you focus on is the job of making the jokes work, you know the audience that you completely disconnect from and and and I wasn't thinking about them at all, which I think is good, yeah, you just focus on, you know, you know, which is all I had to make jokes about deals made on pianos and things like that, but you just forgot about it and I had really no concept of the world without yes, it was just the world inside mine, so focus on that and well, here's a quick reminder from mr. bean at the London Olympics