Dienstag, 6. Januar 2015

Happy Birthday Rowan Atkinson!

The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.

To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom.

You're about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

Nope, I don't enjoy work generally. Not because I'm lazy; it's just all so stressful and worrying.

I have always worried about things more than I should.

Funny things tend not to happen to me. I am not a natural comic. I need to think about things a lot before I can be even remotely amusing.

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.

There is always that age-old thing about England and America being divided by a common language. You think that because we speak English and you speak English that you're bound to understand and like everything that we do. And of course you don't.

I mean I can do it when I'm very relaxed, and with good friends, then I think I can be amusing.

Mr. Bean is at his best when he is not using words, but I am equally at home in both verbal and nonverbal expression.

But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.

No, no, I was only funny on stage, really. I, I, think I was funny as a person toward my classmates when I was very young. You know, when I was a child, up to about the age of 12.

But, actually, so many of the clerics that I've met, particularly the Church of England clerics, are people of such extraordinary smugness and arrogance and conceitedness who are extraordinarily presumptuous about the significance of their position in society.

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 like to juggle with one ball at a time. Then I put the ball down and do nothing for extended periods of time.

The older you get, the more you realise how happenstance... has helped to determine your path through life.


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.

People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I'll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn't the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.

And what's interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.

I consider myself more of a visual comedian than a physical one.

I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination.

It's a bit disconcerting being treated like Madonna.

When I was doing Bean more than I've done him in the last few years, I did strange things - like appearing on chat shows in character as Mr. Bean.

Marketing is what gets you noticed, and that side of it something - this side of it, if you like, doing interviews - is the side of it that I least enjoy, and yet is 50% of the project.

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