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Rowan Atkinson Says He'll Never Retire Mr Bean

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Rowan Atkinson has said that he’d never say goodbye to his character Mr Bean.

The buffoon-ish Bean is Atkinson’s most famous export, broadcast all around the world to 245 territories, making him an international star.

But he’s said that moving into serious drama, as he is about to do playing the detective Maigret in a new series of films for ITV, would not deter him from returning to the tweed jacket.

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Asked if he’d ever retire as Bean, he told the Radio Times: “No, I don’t really have plans like that.

“You go with the parts that are offered that inspire you. I would never finally wave goodbye to any character – I feel as though I could still play him [Bean]. It’s just the emphasis tends to shift.

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“The one thing I would never wish to be thought is that you play serious roles in order to achieve some kind of respectability, which you can’t get if you’re playing comedy.”

Bean was the creation, inspired by the physical comedy of French comic actor Jacques Tati, created by Atkinson and Richard Curtis in 1990, though Atkinson had performed an earlier iteration of the character at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal in 1987.

As well as the character’s hugely successful TV series, Bean also spawned two feature-length movies, ‘Bean’ and 'Mr Bean’s Holiday’ (making nearly $500 million combined), and an animated cartoon spin-off, voiced by Atkinson.

He also brought Bean out for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, and celebrated the character’s 25th anniversary last year.

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However, he has in the past talked about retiring the character.

He told the Daily Telegraph in 2012, that 'someone in their 50s being childlike becomes a little sad’.

Image credits: Working Title/Rex Features/Reuters