Rowan Atkinson has revealed the fascinating reason behind his most iconic character being called ‘Mr Bean’ in a new interview.
Atkinson’s career has seen him take on some iconic roles in Blackadder, Love Actually, and his brand new Netflix film Man vs Baby.
Most across the world however would know the British celebrity best for his time as the silent character.
Mr Bean has been around since the 1980s when Atkinson first appeared as the mute British icon, appearing at a Quebec comedy festival in 1987.
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This was a purposeful choice by Atkinson, who specifically chose a non-English speaking audience (in this case French) to test out whether Mr Bean worked without any dialogue.
Developed alongside Love Actually writer and director Richard Curtis, the character would later go on to star in his own sitcom, and this was when the pair were forced to come up with a name for him.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast show with Scott Mills, Atkinson appeared to promote his new Netflix show, but was asked by Mills about the origins behind Mr Bean.
Atkinson spoke about how he met Richard Curtis at Oxford when they were 20 and 19 respectively and they began working together.
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He said of the name specifically: “He was a character, but he never had a name, that [Atkinson and Curtis] developed on stage.
“Then we decided we were going to put him on TV and so we had a TV show… we thought we should call the show after the character but we didn’t have a name.
“He was called Mr White for a while, extremely bland name, but then we did think of vegetables, for some reason vegetables came into the discussion.
“There was Mr Cauliflower, Mr Courgette, we definitely went through a few, then Bean just struck us as a short, sharp, single syllable with a B in it. Generally speaking words beginning with B are slightly funnier than words that aren’t in my opinion.”
The realisation sounds bizarre till you think about it and, particularly in Atkinson’s accent, makes a lot of sense.
Speaking previously in an interview with GQ, Atkinson stated that the character didn’t need a name in the sketches as they were fully silent.
He then reiterated his point, saying: “Mr Bean seemed short, sharp, and to the point.”
The realisation around his name had fans praising how Aktinson managed to make such an iconic character without any dialogue.
One comment said: “It's cool how he has a superb vocabulary and pronunciation and is also one of the best silent actors.”
Another said: “Crazy how he made a character so popular without saying a word.”
A third commented: “The thing that tickles me about this, is that the Bulgarian word for 'bean' is 'bob'... and Rowan Atkinson managed to make simply saying the name 'Bob' funny!”
Topics: Rowan Atkinson, Netflix, Richard Curtis, Celebrity, TV and Film, TV
Michael Slavin