Rowan Atkinson
English actor, comedian, and screenwriter (born 1955)
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian, and writer. He first gained success on the sketch comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982), before going on to play the title roles in the sitcoms Blackadder (1983–1989) and Mr. Bean (1990–1995), and in the film series Johnny English (2003–present).
He reprised the Mr. Bean character in the films Bean (1997) and Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), and voices the character in Mr. Bean: The Animated Series (2002–present).
Throughout his career, he has frequently collaborated with screenwriter Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, both of whom he met at the Oxford University Dramatic Society during the 1970s.
Atkinson's other film appearances include the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983), The Witches (1990), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), Love Actually (2003), and Wonka (2023), as well as voicing the character Zazu in the Disney animated film The Lion King (1994). He also starred as Inspector Raymond Fowler in the BBC sitcom The Thin Blue Line (1995–1996), French police commissioner Jules Maigret in ITV's Maigret (2016–2017), and Trevor Bingley in the Netflix sitcoms Man vs.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rowan Atkinson” is english actor, comedian, and screenwriter (born 1955). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rowan, Atkinson and English, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “english actor, comedian, and screenwriter (born 1955)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23760. VIAF identifies the subject as 116674546. The Library of Congress control number is n84003035. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1979, 1982 and 1983.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rowan Atkinson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.