This is sort of inflection-free acting [playing Maigret], and I really wasn't sure if I could do it - you make your mind up on whether I've succeeded or not. But yes, I found it difficult when we were shooting; it was a couple of weeks before I settled into not worrying - to finding a way of delivering those lines - so my worries of many months before I think had been justified. I found it a difficult way of being.
Rowan AtkinsonWhen I was doing Bean more than Iโve done him in the last few years, I did strange things - like appearing on chat shows in character as Mr. Bean.
Rowan AtkinsonIt was the challenge of that that I found daunting, but also engaging and interesting [to play Maigret].
Rowan AtkinsonI have always believed that there should be no subject about which one cannot make jokes, religion included. Clearly, one is always constricted by contemporary mores and trends because, after all, what one seeks above all is an appreciative audience.
Rowan AtkinsonThe Scarlet Pimpernel is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 'Best Disciple' competition.
Rowan AtkinsonCertainly in the second film [Maigret's Dead Man], which is quite a more unpleasant and darker story, it's quite different in tone and feel.
Rowan AtkinsonTo criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize๏ปฟ and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.
Rowan Atkinson