Rowan Atkinson Quotes

I like to relish words and sentences, and phraseology, and there's not much facility for that [playing Maigret].

At the moment, I'm certainly not thinking 'never again', but neither am I thinking 'I can't wait to play that part again'. I'm somewhere in between.

It was the challenge of that that I found daunting, but also engaging and interesting [to play Maigret].

The first couple of weeks of filming were quite tricky for me to find my feet with the character [Maigret], which wasn't helped by the story that we were telling.

I don't really have plans like that [move towards more dramatic acting].

Johnny English is someone who really means well it's just that he's not as good as he thinks he is, and I think that maybe that's the British male in a nutshell.

I have always worried about things more than I should.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 'Best Disciple' competition.

The Maigret stories are all very different in terms of the content and the way that the stories are told. They're not what I would call formulaic.

I'm not looking for anything other than an interesting role to play.

I don't think you should be too absolutist about what you play and what you don't play.

I suddenly think the job of acting is a difficult one. It's not as flip, irrelevant and shallow a calling as I thought it was in the Eighties.

loved the show as a child and felt I could not do it justice. [on turning down the role of the new Doctor Who

The arts community still has a long lasting cynicism of the importance, or the artistic value, of comedy. Comedy is just farting about for money.

I think in many ways Johnny English is a more believable character.

I would never be a television presenter. It's not something I could ever do.

The decision to do it [play Maigret] was related to the fact that the character is a very ordinary man, and generally speaking I haven't played very many ordinary men.

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

The job is interesting, and the task is difficult, but the man [Maigret] is just a decent man doing a very ordinary job.

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.

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.

I love walking in the rain because no one can see me crying