"I don't much enjoy playing him," Atkinson said of Mister Bean. "The weight of responsibility is not pleasant. I find it stressful and exhausting, and I look forward to the end of it."
This isn't the first time that Atkinson has spoken out about what is arguably his most well known role. In 2012, he told The Daily Telegraph that the end was near for the character, stating that "Apart from the fact that your physical ability starts to decline, I also think someone in their 50s being childlike becomes a little sad."
Still, the Bean train has continued to roll forward, undoubtedly thanks to the character's enduring popularity. Making the jump from live action to animation has had an enormous impact, with over 100 episodes of cartoon hijinks produced between 2002 and 2019, helping to catapult the official Mister Bean YouTube page to over 25 million subscribers from around the world. That extra layer of separation from the part seems to have helped the performer. "Having made an animated TV series, we're now in the foothills of developing an animated movie for Mr. Bean," Atkinson told RT. "It's easier for me to perform the character vocally than visually."
"I don't actually like the process of making anything," he continued, summing up how basically everyone feels about everything at this point, "with the possible exception of Blackadder, because the responsibility for making that series funny was on many shoulders, not just mine." He was suspiciously silent, however, on the topic of Johnny English.
