Rowan Atkinson quotes: Mr. Bean’s best stuff.
“To be successful you don’t need a beautiful face and heroic body. What you need is a skillful mind and ability to perform.”
“Everything is a risk to a certain extent. But like all risks you make a judgement in order to reduce the risk.”
“So you don’t play any part that comes along, you play the parts that you think you’re going to do best. And then you’re in the lap of the gods to a certain extent. You make a judgement about everyone with whom you come into contact and you decide whether it feels like the kind of thing you want to do. And in the end, in the creative world, your instinct is the only real skill you have. It’s the only real quality that you can lean on. And my instinct historically has been okay, I think. So you’ve just got to carry on trusting your instinct. That’s all you’ve got.”
“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.”
“Marketing is what gets you noticed.”
“Get that right… 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 led rather than market led. And that’s important to me.”
“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.”
“I’m more critical of the films I make than anyone else.”
“I have always worried about things more than I should. But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.”
“I have to say that I’ve always believed perfectionism is more of a disease than a quality. I do try to go with the flow but I can’t let go.”
“I want to express myself in a different way.”
“I think I am a creative person, but I’m slightly more, kind of, visionary. I prefer to guide writers, [rather] than claim to be one of them. 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 I have an inner confidence that my tastes are pretty simple, that what I find funny finds a wide audience. I’m not particularly intellectual or clever or minority-focused in my creative instincts. And I’m certainly not aware of suppressing more sophisticated ambitions.”
“Confronting a stadium audience, you can’t see the whites of their eyes. It’s just an amorphous mass of noise and, of course, you can’t see the alleged billions watching at home either, so the degree to which you are intimidated is quite low.”
“Mr. Bean is essentially a child trapped in the body of a man. All cultures identify with children in a similar way, so he has this bizarre global outreach. I have always regarded Mr. Bean as a timeless, ageless character, and I would rather he be remembered as a character mostly in his 30s and 40s.”
“People realize that whatever you do, in film especially, you’re going to bring the baggage with you, the perception that you’re the bloke who plays Bean – so inevitably, it’s sometimes difficult for people to see you in other roles. I’m aware of the rewards of doing it, and they’re not just financial.”
“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.”
“I’m not a naturally funny man. I find that I can only be funny, if I become someone else.”
“Visual comedy is probably something that you were born with. It actually has very much to do with your ability to express yourself bodily. Where your ability to express yourself verbally is something that you’ve learned since birth. Speech is
all about education and background and family life, and you know what has occurred to you, and your knowledge and your appreciation of the world.”
“I do feel strongly that I’ve enjoyed tremendous freedom in my life and I would like that to continue into future generations.”
“I lead a normal life in a normal way.”
“The older you get, the more you realize how happenstance has helped to determine your path through life.”
Related: Ben Stiller quotes.
