In Johnny English Strikes Again, the UK is in peril, as a result for a security breach at MI7, leaving every agent in the field identified and exposed, and the only option left is to turn to Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) to save the world. Casting aside his job as a teacher, he accepts the mission, but quickly realizes that being an analog spy in a digital world may prove to be a bit of a challenge.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Rowan Atkinson talked about what it’s like to play both Johnny English and Mr. Bean in films, over so many years, the most fun thing he gets to do as Johnny English, the virtual reality sequence, the most challenging stunts, Emma Thompson as Prime Minister, whether he thinks there will be more Johnny English or Mr. Bean movies, and his desire to do another live show on stage.

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Image via Focus Feature

Collider: When we have so much tragedy and trauma going on in the world, it’s nice to watch something like Johnny English Strikes Again and see him save the world, in whatever crazy way works for him.

ROWAN ATKINSON: Yeah, absolutely! He saves the world with such apparent ease, despite never really making a good decision. You can’t quite believe that he does succeed, but he does love to. He’s strangely brave and determined, and he just keeps going.

When you started playing this character in advertisements in 1992, could you ever have imagined that it would lead to movies and that you’d still be here playing him and revisiting him, all of these years later?

ATKINSON: No, I couldn’t, actually. As you know, he started off in a series of TV commercials for a credit card in 1992, and then the first movie was made around 2002. He had an unusual career path. I don’t think many successful movie franchises have grown out of a TV commercial, but this one did. But to be honest, it’s like all things in one’s career – or in my career, anyway – where you just do what seems like a fine idea, at the time. I don’t look to the future very much. I just think, what’s the next enjoyable, successful thing that you might try to do? That’s what keeps you going and exploring the possibilities. Every time we do a movie, whether it’s a Johnny English movie or a Mr. Bean movie, I feel as though I discover more about the character. I always feel that the characters have actually changed. If you watch the first two Johnny English movies, back to back, I think the character would definitely feel as though they’d changed, were different, or would at least be more fully-rounded than he was when he first appeared. I suppose that’s inevitable.

It seems unusual that any actor gets one character that they get to revisit for this many years, and you have two, with John English and Mr. Bean. What do you love about playing each of them, and getting to go back and forth between them?

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Image via Focus Feature

ATKINSON: I like the fantasy that they represent. Mr. Bean is a child trapped in a man’s body, and he behaves like a child. He’s got that anarchy and selfishness, but also love of fun and silliness. It’s hard to play people who are silly, or who are inclined to be silly. I don’t think I’m a very silly person, so it’s just fun to go back to being a child again, which I get to do when I play Mr. Bean. Johnny English is not a child, but he’s also not much more than a teenager. He hasn’t really grown up yet. Mr. Bean is generally having fun, and Johnny English is having fun in his world. He loves this world which, by some weird series of circumstances, he’s been allowed to be in. It’s the world of a British spy. I’m sure he’s an admirer of James Bond because he thinks he’s James Bond, but he isn’t.

You get to do so many wild and crazy things in this, and there are so many fun moments, whether it’s car air bags deploying, playing the bagpipes, dancing, or running around in knight’s armor. What was the most fun thing to do?

ATKINSON: From my point of view, I suppose the most fun thing is always going to be the driving ‘cause I’m a bit of a car man. I get to choose the car for the movie and co-write the car chases, and all of that stuff. I’m afraid that I find the business of filmmaking not fun. I find it quite hard, and it’s physical and tiring. So, getting behind the wheel of the car, I relax, unlike my co-star, Ben Miller, who plays Bough, who has to sit in the passenger seat while I drive, in the way that I want to. It was only a few weeks ago, nearly a year after we finished filming, that he told me how scared he was, all the time that I was driving. He’d been very sweet by not mentioning the fact while we were filming, but now I find out that he had an awful time, so I feel rather guilty about it.

I loved the whole virtual reality sequence, where you have the head gear on. What was that sequence like to shoot, and did you ever have trouble seeing with that thing on?

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Image via Focus Feature

ATKINSON: I could see ahead very well, but I couldn’t see down. When he first comes out onto the street, and he doesn’t realize he’s out in the street, but the curb drops down, he crosses the road, and the curb pops up. I couldn’t drop my head, in order to see where the curb, was on either side of the road, which meant that I had to pace it out. It was two and a half paces, and then there was a step down, and then, after another six paces, there was the step up at other side of the road. I could only hold my head up and count, while all of these cars were screeching to a halt around me and blowing their horns, live in the take. I found that very, very tricky, to make it look as if I was just walking with confidence in a straight line, without any confidence whatsoever. I think that was the secret to the movie. I think that’s has worked out the best. We thought it was such a good idea, but we were scared while we were editing the movie because we had to get this movie out before anyone else had the same idea. It seemed to be such a logical joke about virtual reality, and I was amazed that no one else had done it, or at least not in the way that we did, as far as I’m aware. Maybe there will be copycats, but we got in there before most other people.

Were there any of the stunt sequences that you found most challenging, or more unexpectedly challenging than you thought it would be?

ATKINSON: Anything in the suit of armor was harder than I would have liked it to have been. It wasn’t made of cast iron, even though that’s what it looks like it’s made of. It’s made of plastic. But if you get that amount of painted plastic on you, it’s surprisingly difficult to walk around. It was quite heavy and very uncomfortable. It sticks in your ribs and your backside. It’s horrible to get on, and awful to get off, but it was a great relief to get it off. I did quite a lot in the suit of armor, and I never enjoyed it. That was definitely worse than I thought it was going to be. The dancing sequence was also quite hard work. I didn’t want to do that too many times. I did two or three was all, and I’m glad about that because that was hard work. The rest was generally okay.

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Image via Focus Feature

Your co-star Emma Thompson has referred to you as our modern-day Charlie Chaplin, because you don’t need to speak to be funny. What’s it like to hear such a lovely compliment like that from someone like her, and what do you think she brought to this film?

ATKINSON: It’s a very flattering comparison. I wouldn’t dare say that what she says is true, but thank you very much, Emma. That’s very, very kind of you. She brought a lot to the movie. I think she’s great. Actually, she’s a weirdly convincing Prime Minister. You ca absolutely see her in the job. Maybe she should be in the job. Who’s to say? What’s good about Emma is that she’s what I call a proper actor, unlike me. I just fart about for a living, but she’s the real deal. She’s proper Oscar-winning performer. I first knew her as a comic performer. That’s when I first saw her, when she was still a student at Cambridge University. Since then, she’s done more varied roles, but she’s got a real comic sensibility, which makes her great to perform within a movie like Johnny English. She can bring the credibility and play the part of the Prime Minister well, but at the same time, she can make the jokes work. She can say the line in a funny way, and she can make the scenes work and make Johnny English look funny, but that requires comic genes, and she’s definitely got them.

If Johnny English were a real person and it came down to all of us depending on him to save the world from total destruction, would you feel okay with that, or would you be scared about the ultimate outcome of that?

ATKINSON: I think that would be a mistake. We are able to do it in our movies because it’s fictional and the script is written how we want it to be. If we could write the script of what Johnny English does, in real life, fine, but you can’t write the script of life. It’s just whatever it deals you. So, no, I wouldn’t think he’d be a reliable source of world saving.

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Image via Focus Feature

Do you see more of these Johnny English and Mr. Bean movies, in the future? Do you hope to keep making more of them?

ATKINSON: I don’t, actually, particularly. Certainly not at the present time. But that’s always how I feel, after making a movie. You’re always in the middle of a publicity tour when you think, “When is this going to end?” I’ve worked on the movie pretty solidly for two and a half years and I look forward to finishing it, which in theory, will be in a couple of weeks’ time. So, I have no interest in talking about any other movies soon, but you must never say never. I think it highly unlikely that I would make any more of either franchise, but I don’t know.

So, what is next for you then?

ATKINSON: Doing nothing. That’s my plan. For most of the next year, I don’t want to do anything, really, and certainly not something very taxing. I would like to do another live show or a comedy sketch show on stage, which I haven’t done for decades. I would like to do that ‘cause I enjoy theater and live performing. I like the autonomy that it gives the performer. I’m a control freak, by nature. An actor on stage is in complete control of his performance, and I quite like that. So, that might happen, but other than that, I have no plans.

Johnny English Strikes Again is now playing in theaters.

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