Rowan Atkinson

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson, born on 6 January 1955 in Consett, England, is an English actor, comedian, and writer whose career has spanned television, film, theatre, and Broadway. The youngest of four boys, he was raised by his father Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and his mother Ella May, née Bainbridge. His brothers include Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist, and Rupert; a third brother, Paul, died in infancy. Atkinson was educated at Durham Chorister School and St Bees School, where he and his brothers attended alongside future Prime Minister Tony Blair. He went on to earn a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Newcastle University in 1975, and later an MSc in Electrical Engineering from The Queen's College, Oxford, where he was made an Honorary Fellow in 2006. His master's thesis, published in 1978, addressed the application of self-tuning control.

Atkinson's path toward performance began during his time at Oxford, where he wrote and performed sketches for the Etceteras, the revue group of the Experimental Theatre Club, and for the Oxford University Dramatic Society. It was through these activities that he met writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, collaborators with whom he would maintain long professional relationships. He first attracted national attention at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1976, performing in The Oxford Revue. His early radio work included The Atkinson People, a 1979 BBC Radio 3 series of satirical interviews with fictional figures, written by Atkinson and Curtis and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.

Television brought Atkinson widespread recognition beginning in October 1979, when he joined the BBC sketch comedy series Not the Nine O'Clock News alongside Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones, and Mel Smith. He served as both performer and one of the show's principal writers, and received the British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance in 1981 for his contributions to the series. That same year, he earned an Olivier Award for his West End theatre performance in Rowan Atkinson in Revue. The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led directly to his casting as Edmund Blackadder in the BBC mock-historical sitcom Blackadder, which ran from 1983 to 1989. The first series, co-written by Atkinson and Curtis, was set in the medieval period. Subsequent series, written by Curtis and Ben Elton, reimagined the central character across the Elizabethan era, the Regency period, and the First World War. The run produced several television specials, including Blackadder's Christmas Carol in 1988 and Blackadder: Back & Forth in 1999. Atkinson received a second British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance in 1990 for his work on Blackadder.

His second major television creation, Mr. Bean, debuted on New Year's Day 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. Atkinson has cited Jacques Tati's character Monsieur Hulot as the primary inspiration for the role. The character continued in a series of television episodes through 1995 and was later adapted into two feature films: Bean, directed by Mel Smith and released in 1997, and Mr. Bean's Holiday in 2007. Atkinson also voices the character in Mr. Bean: The Animated Series, which began in 2002. His other television credits include the role of Inspector Raymond Fowler in the BBC sitcom The Thin Blue Line, which ran from 1995 to 1996 and was written by Ben Elton, French police commissioner Jules Maigret in ITV's Maigret from 2016 to 2017, and Trevor Bingley in the Netflix sitcoms Man vs. Bee in 2022 and Man vs. Baby in 2025.

Atkinson's film work includes an appearance in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again in 1983, The Witches in 1990, Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994, Rat Race in 2001, Scooby-Doo in 2002, Love Actually in 2003, and Wonka in 2023. He voiced the character Zazu in Disney's animated film The Lion King in 1994. His recurring film role as the bumbling spy Johnny English, a character rooted in a long-running series of Barclaycard advertisements in which he played an error-prone agent named Richard Lathum, has continued across Johnny English in 2003, Johnny English Reborn, and Johnny English Strikes Again.

On stage, Atkinson's theatre credits include the role of Fagin in the 2009 West End revival of the musical Oliver! His Broadway career includes an appearance in 1986 in Rowan Atkinson at the Atkinson, for which he also served as book writer. In 2003, The Observer named Atkinson among the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and a 2005 poll of fellow comedians placed him among the top 50 comedians of all time. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to drama and charity.